How the Heart Yearns to Misbehave
by theatrics
Summary: Teacher/Student AU. When a one-night stand becomes a delicate day-to-day ritual, there's no place to go but forward.
1. The Little Story of the Girl You Know

**Thank you to my beta for whipping this into shape! Hope you all enjoy.**

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**Warnings: **Graphic content; underage sex and drinking; teacher/student relationship; M/F, M/M, and M/F/M relationships; polyamory

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Standing perched poolside with her toes curling haphazardly over the edge, Elena Gilbert plays with the loose knot of her black nylon cover wrap. It requires only a bit of fiddling with before it pools lazily at her feet to reveal her La Perla black bikini. Elena just admires the pleasurable sensation of the midday sun against her skin for a time. An indulgent grin melts across her face, encouraging her to stretch her arms above her head, to arch her back to a dazed effect. She is impeccably lethargic.

A perfect target.

"Think fast, 'Lena!" Stefan yawps, scooping her up around the waist as he propels them both forward and into the water. Elena barely has time to shriek, much less react, as both of them sink beneath the surface of the Salvatore family's Valencia style pool. It's only her years of recreational swimming that keep her from inhaling a lung-full of water, but by the time she breaks the surface of the water again, she's a drowned rat seeing red.

"_Stefan_!" she yelps wildly, slapping so much water his way that she could've been a one-woman hurricane. From the side of the pool, she catches the jovial uproar of their friends: Caroline, Bonnie, Matt, and Tyler. "You _asshole_!"

With his arms angled in front of his face in a failed attempt to shield himself from the assault of water, Stefan smiles broadly at her.

"You were just asking for it," he laughs, diving out of the way when Elena looks to bristle and lunge for him. "Standing there with your arms up, looking so relaxed and serene..."

"Stefan Salvatore, I should kill you!"

"You wouldn't," Stefan beams gaily as he makes a beeline for the opposite end of the pool with Elena hot on his tail.

"That was before you football-tackled me into your pool! _I could have died_!"

She's coming at him with the proverbial claws unsheathed now which has their beached audience practically howling with amusement.

"Another Oscar award-winning performance from Elena Gilbert—"

Stefan continues his insistent monologue which only further serves Elena's purpose. At this rate, she'll have him cornered in the shallow end in no time. With her lips drawn back, she perseveres emphatically.

"Or cracked my skull!"

...to which Stefan is apt to proceed:

"—whose theatrics are only outshone by the size of the stick up her massive, perfectly shaped a—"

Taking him by the shoulders, she forces all of her weight down upon him to shove him beneath the water. She holds him down there until she feels as though she's made her point (or, essentially, until she can virtually hear their friends' sides splitting from laughter). By the time she lets him go, he comes up gulping and spewing water. It's perhaps for dramatic effect that Elena takes a sweeping and cheeky upper-body bow.

"Waterlogged is a good look on you, Stef," Elena clucks, flicking more water toward him as she wades toward the side of the pool.

"I'm calling attempted murder," he wheezes exaggeratedly.

"Self-defense," she corrects him with a pointed wag of her finger. "You started it."

Stefan feigns bitterness for only a moment longer before he strides languidly toward Elena. He joins her at the left as she props herself up on her elbows to look at their rag-tag group of friends. Caroline descends upon Stefan not long after, draping her legs on either side of him as she sits with them calves-deep in the pool.

"Hi," Caroline coos adoringly as he draws his arms around her waist. Stefan purrs something to her that Elena can't (and almost certainly, doesn't _want_ to) hear while Tyler, Bonnie, and Matt gather around. Bonnie dips her feet in the pool near Elena just as Matt and Tyler wrestle one another precariously into the deep end, splashing all of them.

"Boys," Elena simulates annoyance.

"Yes, _boys_," Bonnie wriggles her eyebrows at Elena suggestively, to which Stefan and Caroline laugh.

Elena pointedly rolls her eyes. This is their continuous reminder of her seemingly eternal uncommitted state. Where Stefan and Caroline have each other, Bonnie has Elena's younger brother Jeremy, Matt has some college girl named Rebekah, and Tyler is pining after some yet-to-be-named cougar, Elena is caught in a continual lapse of relational solitude. Caroline likes to poke fun and call this Elena's Lone Wolf Syndrome.

"_But even lone wolves eventually find their mates,"_ Caroline had said once, too.

Elena screws up her face and gropes for her stranded sunglasses. Slipping them onto the bridge of her nose, she purses her lips at all of them.

"I'm quite fine being the pack's communal third wheel, thanks," she says at last.

"But don't you miss sex, 'Lena?" Caroline drawls whimsically and unprovoked, causing Stefan to lightly pinch at her upper thighs. All of these couples are making Elena lovesick but sicker in the literal sense of the word. They're making her downright nauseous.

"Whoever said I stopped having sex, Care?" Elena responds somewhat defensively.

"Gee, I dunno, maybe the fact that you've never spared us the details about any of your sexcapades, like, ever," her blond friend persists before snorting in amusement. "It's been—I don't know—like, three months, or something."

"Wow," faux shock floods over Elena's face. "Three whole months? What is this, my sexual intervention?"

"Kind of," Bonnie cuts in, looking devilish.

Something like a stone drops in Elena's stomach. They are definitely up to something. She groans.

"Just hear us out!" Caroline trills swiftly, nearly strangling Stefan with her legs in the process.

"Whatever it is, the answer is no."

"You didn't even let me fini—!"

"That's because the last time I let you finish, you set me up on a blind date with the pizza delivery guy."

"What?" gapes Caroline. "He was cute."

"He was into Star Wars and fantasy RPGs. He also had a chronic case of garlic breath."

"Okay, so maybe that set-up was kind of a bust..."

"Kind of?"

"Fine, it was a total bust!" Caroline tosses her hands up in exasperation before drawing her legs out of the water to better angle herself toward Elena. "Look, this isn't like that."

Extremely skeptic, Elena peeks at her friend from above her sunglasses.

"It isn't! Seriously! Pinky promise, cross my heart."

It becomes abundantly clear to Elena that unless she lets Caroline say her fill that she will never hear the end of it. So, she folds her arms on the concrete and balances her chin on them.

"Okay, Care. What is it?"

Squealing in delight, Caroline licks her lips before gesticulating exuberantly with her hands.

"We're going to, wait for it... _Decade_!"

As the others hiss with excitement, Elena's jaw drops.

"The twenty-one and up nightclub owned by the Mikaelsons?"

"What other _Decade_ is there?"

"How the hell did you manage to get an invite there?" Elena presses, genuinely suspicious.

When Stefan and Caroline exchange a perceptive look, this only further escalates Elena's mounting skepticism.

"We met somebody," Caroline murmurs surreptitiously.

"You _met_ somebody?"

"Yup," she nibbles gently on her bottom lip while side-glancing Stefan from the corners of her eyes. Elena looks uneasily between the two, but their silent eye-fuck is already more than enough to set fire to some sort of frustration within her.

"Okay, what gives? Spill, Caroline. Your attempt at secrecy is downright shameful."

"Promise not to judge!" Caroline says needlessly, her eyes radiant as Stefan palms encouragingly at the small of her back. For once, Elena is actually worried.

"Oh, god. You aren't pregnant, are you?"

There's a moment of silence before everyone except Elena—who hardly finds this funny—busts out laughing.

"No!" crows the blonde, her face bright red with humor. "Oh, my god, _no_!"

"Then what is it?" Elena urges, now more irritated than anything else.

"Well, you know the owner of the club, Mikael, right?" as soon as Elena nods at the essentially rhetorical question, Caroline continues. "His sons oversee _Decade_ now, and Stefan and I—" again, the two lovebirds in question insist on doing that mysterious eye-thing with each other. "—we sort of met one of them, and... we all really hit it off," now both Caroline and Stefan are blushing strawberry red. What the actual fuck is going on? "His name is Klaus."

For several ticks, Elena squints, despite the fact that her eyes are veiled by her sunglasses. She looks to Caroline, then to Stefan, and then to the rest of them before settling back on Caroline. It's almost as though the name Klaus is some kind of covert trigger for something, and Elena is the only one still in the dark.

"So this Klaus let you in?" muses Elena, after the most pregnant pause imaginable.

"Yeah," Caroline smiles, fluttering her eyes toward Stefan.

Elena finally throws in the towel.

"Okay, what's the part of the equation that I'm missing here? What was that you said about judging, exactly?"

For what seems to be the fifteenth time in a span of thirty seconds, Stefan and Caroline gaze meaningfully into each other's eyes. Elena bites back pretend vomit. Their romance, although inspiring, is a bit too saturated for Elena's tastes, at times. Even so, when Stefan snakes his arm around Caroline's waist from his place in the pool and her spot on the side of it, Elena watches them expectantly.

"We're dating him."

The way Stefan says it is so nonchalant, so commonplace, that for a moment Elena swears they're just talking about the weather. Then, the reality of the statement sinks in, and Elena is strangely unperturbed.

"Wait. Dating him, as in... both of you?"

They nod.

"All three of you? Together?"

They nod again.

"…Nice."

Honest to god, it's the first word that stumbles out of her mouth, and Elena doesn't think to grab it back. This is probably because it's the truth. It is nice. As long as her friends are happy, so is she. But when the pair of them looks uncertain if not a bit worrisome, Elena proceeds.

"I mean it, guys, I'm happy for you. It_ is_ nice. I'm glad," Elena smiles evocatively and at last the couple smiles as well. Honestly, from the look of it, all of their friends appear more than happy for the threesome. So, Elena figures the matter isn't too pressing.

"So, about this club."

"Oh! Yes!" Caroline perks up as she takes her eyes off hers and Stefan's threaded fingers. "So, tonight... there's a big end of summer party, and we're all going!"

Elena, in spite of herself, grins a little.

"Will I get to meet the mysterious Klaus?"

"Of course!" chirps Caroline.

"Well, then," Elena's eyes sweep to Bonnie and then back to Caroline mischievously. "Let's dust off our fake I.D.'s, girls. Tonight we're getting a little bit rowdy."

**. . .**

Five short hours later, the three girls are underwear-clad and toeing around Elena's generously sized room. Dresses and clothes of all shapes, sizes, and colors are strewn on every surface imaginable—except for, of course, the actual bodies of the girls themselves.

"What's more my color?" Caroline asks as she holds a midnight blue dress in her left hand and a tea green dress in her right. "Undress-me blue or sex-me-up green?"

Bonnie and Elena erupt with laughter as Caroline strikes an evocative pose with each of them.

"Undress-me blue," Bonnie concludes, to which Elena enthusiastically agrees.

"The decision is unanimous," proclaims Caroline as she casts the green selection aside to display the sexy, strapless dark blue cocktail party dress. It will easily rest at her mid-thigh when she puts it on. Stefan and this Klaus fellow will be going crazy for her tonight. No doubt this is Caroline's intention. "Now you, Bonnie!"

"I've already picked my dress," she smirks slyly as she nods over to where a short, black, and backless chiffon mini-dress rests. Elena tries not to think about how thrilled her brother would be to see her best friend in that.

"Holy fuck," Caroline hisses with approval. "Too bad Jeremy's not going with us tonight. He'd have that dress off you before you even—"

"Thank you, Caroline!" Elena's voice booms over hers as she pretends to plug her ears with her fingers.

As they all share another laugh, Elena tip-toes unhurriedly toward her bed where her top three choices of dress now lie. Drawing her teeth over her bottom lip, she agonizes briefly over the decision. Should she go for a classy yet sassy deep rose halter dress, a sensual slip of mauve, or a downright sinful black and green bandage style ribbon dress? It takes her only a moment to come to her conclusion, where she had been debating the three now for the better part of an hour.

"I'm thinking... ribbon dress."

Her friends both express their praise with eager claps and comments of clear endorsement.

"Good choice," Caroline says as she steps into her own little number. "Makes your tits look outstanding."

"And shows off those sexy legs," Bonnie giggles as she knocks her hip into Elena's.

"Maybe our lone wolf won't stay stag for long after the boys catch sight of you," ventures Caroline as she readjusts her breasts to get them settled just right in her outfit.

"Boys?" Bonnie exhales flippantly. "You mean _men_."

Elena rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

"You two are insufferable," she says in earnest as she, too, slips into her tight, form-fitting dress.

"You'll thank us after that dress finally gets you laid."

Grabbing the first hard object within reach, Elena playfully pelts Caroline with one of her sky-high stiletto heels.

**. . .**

Within the next hour, they're all standing outside of the already packed _Decade_. Elena wonders for a moment if they'll even be able to get in. With the way the bouncers are sending away wannabe patrons left and right, her concern isn't without merit.

"I hope your beau comes through with this," Elena speaks over the noise to a cozy Caroline and Stefan (who hasn't been able to keep his hands off Caroline since the boys picked them up). "I don't want to have spent two and a half hours getting ready for nothing."

"Have some faith, Elena," Stefan chuckles. "All of us are expected."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

As they continue to move ahead in the line, Elena tries to busy herself with people-watching. She keeps her arm looped with Bonnie's as she combs through the throng of couples, couples, and more couples. There comes that lovesick feeling again—the gross kind. It's only the promise of alcohol inside that keeps her from ditching in that moment, because with her luck, there wouldn't be a single guy within a five mile radius.

Although, she reckons that, at the very least, she has Bonnie for a date. She wouldn't have to dance alone for the entire night, anyway. Thank god Jeremy doesn't look a day over sixteen. The kid turns up useful sometimes.

By the time they are almost at the front of the line, Elena avows that she never wants to see love or be in love again. The atmosphere is stifling, even outdoors. The people who aren't slobbering on each other have their hands wandering, and she will even swear an oath that she saw two girls getting to third base. Was something in the water at this place? Because holy shit.

Elena's practically thanking god and converting to Christianity once their group is face-to-face with the bouncer and his significant-looking list. Caroline steps forward, unable still to break Stefan's loving hold on her.

"Caroline Forbes' party of six."

The burly beast of a man thumbs through his list before giving Caroline a gruff nod and barking, "VIP" to the man in charge of unhooking the rope leading inside. Practically bursting with pride, Caroline rings her arm through Stefan's before moving inside, leading their little group to the alleged VIP-section of the animated club.

After all of them have their wrists situated with their twenty-one-and-up bands, they part the waters of their pack mentality to admire their surroundings with visible awe. Almost at once, Elena's hold on Bonnie's arm loosens. _Decade_'s dark, inviting display is thick with mystery. While the ambiance is sensual and divine, it's also got a certain relaxed and welcoming quality to it, as well. The music currently playing is sexy and low, a dull thump that makes Elena's entire body pulse. There's no denying her excitement now. Where before she had wanted to drink and maybe share a dance or two with her friends, now she wants to find somebody sexy and tell them all sorts of _hey._

"This place is amazing," Elena says.

"Isn't it?" beams Caroline as she leans into Stefan's side. "Stefan, look!"

All eyes are on Caroline as she nearly jumps from her boyfriend's arms to gesture toward a sharply dressed and deceptively handsome man with blond hair. Elena knows almost instinctively that this has to be Klaus.

As the man in question catches sight of the enthusiastically waving Caroline and the wide-smiling Stefan, Elena discovers that she is not disappointed. As he strides over, he makes a point to press a doting kiss to both Stefan's and Caroline's lips.

"Everyone," Caroline begins with her arms around both of her boys. "This is Klaus Mikaelson. Klaus, these are all our best friends—Tyler, Matt, Bonnie, and Elena." Each of their names is accentuated by a nod in their direction.

"I do believe I already know this young fellow," Klaus inclines his head toward Matt with mischief twinkling in his eyes. Caroline laughs joyously as she leans further into Klaus for a moment.

"Matt's dating Klaus' sister."

It's just one of the many truth bombs of the day. Elena considers that maybe she should be alarmed by this turn of events, but instead she decides that she just wants to be pleasantly surprised. She could be angry at them all later for taking so god-damned long to clue her in. For their sakes' there had better be a damn good reason why this entire evening had been so shrouded in mystery. That is to say, if they valued their heads at their current status between their shoulders.

"Small world," Elena relents with a meaningful but tight-lipped smile as she steps forward to greet Klaus. "Nice to meet you."

Without warning, Klaus moves to kiss both sides of her cheeks. She supposes, in retrospect, that she probably should have expected this sort of class from a man with such a delicious accent. At the very least, Caroline and Stefan have great taste in men.

"A pleasure, Elena," he insists. "Gilbert, yes? Your family's name precedes you—and _well_, if I might add."

Elena manages a smile. Though her parents are now deceased, their names and wealth live on in her and her brother. The Gilberts are one of Mystic Falls' oldest families, as well as one of the Northeast's most prominent lineages of doctors.

"As does yours," replies Elena, stepping back slightly. She debates asserting her dominance as both Stefan and Caroline's best friend by telling Klaus that he had better treat them right, but as she watches the trio gawk and smile and just ooze affection for each other, she thinks better of it. Caroline and Stefan would take care of themselves and each other. Mama Bear Elena finds herself effectively unnecessary… and in need of an alcoholic beverage again.

"Anyone up for a round of drinks?" she asks, to a roaring response.

"May I, love?" Klaus cuts in, almost annoyingly. "I'd hate to be seen as anything less than a hospitable host."

"Please," Elena keeps up her poker face of a grin while they all gravitate toward the bar. A bartender is waiting for them, his sense of duty no doubt aroused by one of the owner's sons padding his way. Each of them places their particular drink order before a celebratory tray of tequila shots, salts, lime wedges is situated in their midst. Elena can practically feel the buzz that awaits her in that little shot glass.

"To friends and to love," exclaims Klaus with a smirk as he lifts his glass. The others laugh and follow suit just as Elena considers gagging. Instead, she ignores the brief sensation to become the first to lick off her salt and down her glass—much to everyone else's surprise. She relishes in the burn of the tequila as it races down her throat. Screwing up her face for a moment, she's soon biting into her slice of lime and looking raring and ready to go as the others are just now nursing their shots.

"Someone's ready to tear it up," Bonnie laughs but then coughs through the inevitable burn of her shot.

"Don't tell me you need a chaperone, 'Lena," Matt grins deviously as the bartender slides their specified orders their way.

"Up yours," Elena rolls her eyes as she scoops up and then chugs her Irish Car Bomb.

"It's summer. She doesn't need to behave yet," maintains Stefan as he takes to his gin and tonic.

"What's this?" comes the dark velvet voice of someone Elena realizes at once that she does not know. "My baby brother… having a little illegal fun?"

Except in that instant, Elena reconsiders that she _does _know him. Actually, she's known about him almost her entire life.

What the fuck is Damon Salvatore doing back in town after effectively being out of it now for over six years? And, oh, fuck—just look at him. Her legs clench together involuntarily as her eyes drag excitedly over his form. He's sipping on bourbon and sporting a five o'clock shadow that's all kinds of sexy. Elena's unknowingly biting her lip now. How long can she stare at him before it becomes awkward? Or perhaps the more appropriate question is how long can she stare at him before she melts into a puddle of alcohol, sweat, and teenage hormones? She's too far gone to know at this point.

"Damon!" Stefan goes for a look that reeks of practiced surprise, but Elena's too enamored with eyeballing his brother to care why. "Don't tell me you're here to play the fun police."

"No, dear brother, I'm here to express just how proud I am for your long-awaited fall from grace," Damon's lips twist into a smirk that's so attractive it's nearly inhuman. "Who do I get to thank for your moral descent?" he tips his glass curiously before knocking back the rest of his drink.

Elena swears that some sort of secret code is going on in this moment because almost all of them turn their eyes on her in the seconds that follow. She tries to give off the air of a cool, collected bar mistress for this impromptu spotlight but she worries that the way she's fisting her empty drink and chewing on the inside of her lip is severely killing her vibe.

"Who?" Elena plays coy, the buzz from the alcohol already boosting her confidence and attitude considerably. "Me? Guilty as a whore in church."

Several of them almost spit out their drinks, but Elena's eyes are fixated on Damon. It's almost certainly wishful thinking, but he appears to be rather taken with her. _God, the feeling's mutual._ She chances another quick taste of her drink. Already the alcohol has her feeling warm and hungry for the challenge and risk that this older man no doubt presents.

"Damon, that's _Elena Gilbert_," Caroline chimes in, a little too cozy for Elena's tastes, but that's in all likelihood the alcohol talking. Maybe Elena just missed the part where everyone else had exchanged names with Stefan's positively dangerous-looking older brother. Or maybe she just doesn't care. Regardless, a moment later and he is moving toward her with the pristine stride of a lethal predator. His presence alone is enough to make her weak in the knees. She catches herself pressing more of her weight into the bar as he nears her and his aftershave tries to defy all logic by successfully assaulting all five of her senses.

"Hello, Elena," the sound of her name in his mouth does unspeakable things to her. Elena needs to take a moment to tell her hormones to sit the entire fuck down just so she can offer him her hand—which he takes at once to press the back of her palm to his lips. Soft and beckoning, they brush against her skin with an unanticipated roughness supported by the coarseness of his stubble.

"Hi," she drawls, hoping that she doesn't sound as dilapidated and drunk as she feels. This is an inebriation that has nothing to do with her slight intake of drink and everything to do with the sight, scent, and presence of the gentleman before her now. Elena questions her stance on the love at first sight debate in this instance; at least as far as her sex drive is concerned. Because, god damn, if her body isn't absolutely humming for this Greek god of a man.

"Heavy drink for such a little girl," Damon seems to tease her as he nods toward her emptied choice of alcohol.

Immediately, Elena's on the defensive but with a spur of buoyancy.

"I'm no lightweight," she says with a manner of coolness as she licks the remnants of her drink from her lips before leaning up to whisper, "and I'm certainly no _little girl_, either."

Setting her drink on the countertop, Elena makes her best work of her hip-hugging dress and show-stopping heels as she moves toward the dance floor. She doesn't look back, but then again she doesn't need to. If the look in his eyes had been any indication as she had moved in, as he had presumably thought her unproblematic enough to kiss him then and there, she knows he will follow—or, if not for her audacity then for the purposefully wicked sway of her hips. She knows this game all too well.

The finer details that she misses in her conquest, however, are the grins exchanged behind her back, the knowing looks flashing in her friends' eyes. Yet none of that matters as she weaves through the mass of writhing bodies, a seasoned professional on her heels even when tipsy.

A woman on a mission, Elena hones in on her target quickly before moving into him. The boy is of college age. He's young of face and form and mildly attractive. All it takes from her is a general glance in his direction, and he steals away his chance. His hands are cupping her waist mere heartbeats later as they begin to dance closely and heatedly to the aberrant bass of the club music. She plays up her interest by looping her arms around his neck and leaning in closer still.

Elena knows Damon is watching. His stare is severe, like an actual weight (or, more appropriately, a target) on her back. She hadn't been wrong that he would pursue her. Feeling mischievous, she casts her head and her hair back as she moves with this stranger and pretends to laugh at something funny that he hasn't said. Her nameless partner looks about to take advantage of Elena's newly exposed neck when Elena feels the return of Damon's commanding shadow. She waits until her placeholder of a dance partner ceases to move before she permits her eyes to wander to Damon where he stands in his form-fitting black shirt and dark jeans. A lazy smile overcomes her dark eyes.

She had won.

"Excuse me," Damon says dismissively to the boy who doesn't argue. Elena had chosen correctly again in a young man who knew when to back down. She doesn't move again until Damon comes to her, his impressive hands waiting to take their place at her hips only after granted permission by a certain glint in Elena's eyes. Suddenly, it's as though it's only them. The rest of the club dissolves, leaving Damon and Elena, circling one another in a precarious mêlée for dominance.

"What sort of games do you play, Elena?" he asks her as their bodies press intimately together. Elena requires a moment to collect herself, to learn to speak over the vibration of attraction that he sends hastening through her. Her blood is roaring as they dance, close and sweltering. If it had not been for his right hand at the small of her back, she worries that her legs would have buckled entirely.

"Games?" she breathes the word after a long moment. "Only _little girls_ play games, Mr. Salvatore."

The music shifts to a song that's sultry and soft, and at once, he has her turned about with her back to his chest. Elena's breath becomes caught in her throat, and for several heartbeats, all she can hear is her own pulse over the hushed sighs of the music. His lips brush against the left side column of her neck as they continue to sway with her backside arched with sinful accuracy against him.

"I beg your pardon, _Miss _Gilbert," Damon taunts her with her own civility as his palms climb up the slope of her waist and her curves., "for you are certainly no little girl."

"He listens," Elena exhales, allowing her eyes to close for a moment as she rolls her hips with debauched precision. "I like a boy who learns quickly."

"Not a boy," he murmurs the words against the back of her ear impishly. "A man."

_This man. God, this man. _Elena practically dissolves into his embrace. What's more, it feels as though it physically pains her to move as she makes to turn herself to face him again, to catch his eyes. _So blue. _A white ball of heat settles at the slope of her belly. She feels enraptured, wholly captivated. Tentatively, she allows her hand to hover just shy of the left side of his face. The pads of her fingers twitch, ghosting over his cheek. Elena is just about to gather up her nerves when his hand rises to cover her own, holding it against his skin.

"I don't bite," Damon claims smoothly as her hips crush against his. His desire for her is painfully obvious, and it sends her heart racing away. She can't help her body's natural reaction which is to move further against him. This draws a gruff sound from the depths of Damon's throat and encourages Elena to lean into his chest. Her hands move up the length of his back just as his work over the swell of her bottom.

"What if I want you to?" she slurs, inhaling the intoxicating scent of Damon—which is a delectable mixture of aftershave, cologne, and bourbon. Resting his face beside hers, he encourages her head to tilt to the side, exposing his neck to him. His breath comes warm and heavenly against her skin, influencing her lips to part and her eyes to fall shut once more. The moment that his teeth nip at the lobe of her ear, however, the heat between her legs reaches a boiling point, and there's nothing that she can do to stop the moan that escapes her lips.

"Then you'll find you won't be disappointed," he hums against her neck as he drags his teeth across an offered stretch of luscious olive skin. Elena knows that she couldn't have resisted Damon even if she wanted to (and, god, she didn't). Her body is aching, the delicate space between her thighs wet and wanting. She is so desperate for this man who she barely knows, and yet who she feels such an electric connection with. Canting her head up to look once more into those blue, blue eyes, she mouths the words that have been on her mind since she had first laid eyes on him. There is no need for games when she knows precisely what she wants.

She wants him.

"Take me home," Elena all but implores, her hands fisting Damon's shirt at the base of his neck. Her brown eyes are dark and heavily lidded, and she can feel his body react to the scorching desperation of her plea.

Through the dark shadows of the dance floor, he steals her away, then and there.

**. . .**

It's purely a miracle that they make it home without totaling Damon's car. For the entire drive, they can barely keep their hands off each other. Had Elena been of sounder mind, she would have considered that neither of them should be driving, but as it happens, all she can focus on is the unbelievably attractive man to her left and what awaits her at his home. In fact, she's so taken with him that when he parks his Camaro in front of the Salvatore estate, it barely registers that this is where she had just been earlier today with her friends—with Stefan. It's like a small, minor detail that has suddenly fled from her as they are unbuckling their seatbelts and climbing out of the car.

Damon's hands are immediately on Elena's waist, guiding her or perhaps just needing to touch her, to feel her again. He has her pressed against the column of the house within heartbeats, and his mouth covering hers soon after. It feels far too long and cruel of a build-up for this kiss, but where their contact on the dance floor had been electrifying; this is a volatile cataclysm of unadulterated lust and feral need. He's pressing into her, their pelvises quaking from the intimate contact of his too-tight jeans against her showing undergarments.

Her dress has ridden up past her hips, leaving her lacy black boy shorts exposed as her legs rise to drape around his thighs. Damon moans into her mouth which she parts to accommodate his hungering tongue. He kisses her lips swollen, kisses her until both of their chests are heaving and frantic for air. Elena's head lolls to the side once his lips coast lower, to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. He's got her pinned against the pillar now with her legs wrapped eagerly around his waist.

"Damon," she sighs, her fingernails scraping impatiently against his scalp as he trails hot, wet kisses up and down the span of her neck. It takes Elena rolling and swiveling her hips against the strain of his erection just to distract him. "_Damon_."

This gets his attention with a deep-throated groan.

"Mm-mmm?"

"Inside."

Damon doesn't need to be told twice. Carefully letting her down—though the distance pains the both of them—he moves to first unlock and then open the door before he steps back to her. Craning up to meet him, she claims his lips for hers and buries her fingers in his hair. There's a meeting of tongues, a fleeting but unflustered clash of teeth, and he's leading her inside. He has set her body ablaze, successfully igniting every nerve in her system with desire and sensation. Then he scoops her up, cupping her backside, and she's rewarded with the friction she's so longed for.

They're fumbling into some dim room in the dark with her legs holding onto him with longing and ease. Not even seconds later, and they're on the bed with her legs spread apart and him resting between them. Elena sighs, her hair splayed out around her indiscriminately as she tugs him into her so he can lay assertion to her lips, her face, and her neck. She wants for him to have all of her.

At this point, her dress has risen to expose her navel with her panties in plain view to him. She watches as Damon drinks in the sight of her with the eyes of man thoroughly parched and as though she alone is the woman to quench his thirst. Her fingers coast through his hair, and for a moment, they merely look into each other's eyes. All of their passion jolts between them, and they're left completely unable to resist one another any longer.

His thumb finds her clit through the fabric of her underwear, and Elena nearly comes undone. She whimpers beneath him, arching up to meet his ephemeral touch. Damon has her desperate and starving for more as the tether of sexual tension between them becomes too much for her to bear any longer.

"Damon, please," she whines, her breasts straining against the tight fabric of her dress.

"Please, what?" Damon purls.

"Enough foreplay," Elena groans, urging her dress further up until it rests just beneath her chest. His eyes darken as he watches her, but soon he's helping lift her dress over her head to reveal her matching black bra. Abruptly self-conscious beneath his appraising stare, her body flushes. Then, Damon's lips descend upon her.

"You're beautiful," he kisses the words into the hollow of her throat as she begins to slip his own shirt above his head—and, fuck him, if he isn't just as perfect beneath all those gratuitous layers. This man couldn't be human. Elena is absolutely convinced.

"Fuck me," she rasps the words into his ear, her face flushed from both his compliment as well as from her earlier indulgence of alcohol. Her body is pulsing with overconfidence, and she is wholly beyond feeling shame at this point as she drags her teeth across his ear. The damage is immediate as his palms skate down the lengths of her winding curves to hook his fingertips beneath the waistband of her panties.

"Be careful what you wish for, _Miss Gilbert_," he breathes against the sensitive skin of her belly as he whisks her boy shorts down. This invites an onslaught of cool air against her which elicits a sharp intake of breath from Elena. Before she can prepare herself, his fingers are touching her experimentally. "Fuck, Elena... you're so wet." It's an observation but the lust behind it saturates her, sending an abrupt shiver down her spine.

"Ever since—" a shudder and a shift of his fingers disrupt her, but she soon persists wickedly. "—ever since the club."

Drawing up and back slightly, Damon flicks his thumb over her clit before delving his fingers deeper into her, parting her wet folds. Elena shifts impetuously beneath him, angling her hips up as she silently begs him for more.

"So impatient," he taunts her, opting to utilize the element of surprise as he skillfully slips one of his fingers inside of her. Elena's back arcs off the bed as she bares her teeth to fight back a moan. He moves his finger effortlessly inside of her as her come visibly coats it.

"God damn it, Damon," hisses Elena as he hooks his finger inside of her with a skilled exactitude that strokes her in just the right spot. Her legs begin to tremble, and she's left a writhing and rosy mess on the comforter. "Please. _Please_."

"I love it when you beg."

"Then you'll really love it when I leave you begging, high and dry," she snaps heatedly as he inserts another finger which he pumps in and out of her in tandem with the other one. Elena wants to strangle him, shake him—_something_. Her body is shaking with need, and he's just toying with her, pulling that tether tighter and tighter as though he never intends to allow that necessary snap. She could kill him.

He's driving her mad, and so she decides it's time to take matters into her own hands (rather literally). The next time his fingers pull out of her, she makes her move. Shifting down, she reaches between them and firmly grasps his erection through his jeans with the palm of her hand.

"Take off your pants," she commands, and he's working at his belt instantly and then tugging his pants down and off. Elena licks her lips, her eyes nothing but sinister lust and intention as she comes to find that he has been wearing nothing beneath them this entire time. Her breath catches as she fists the length of him. He instinctively bucks into her grasp as he arches over her, his lips at her neck.

Damon whispers her name into her hair as she slides her hand up his cock, her thumb moving over the head of him with agonizingly slow precision. His hips jerk erratically as she begins to stroke him leisurely, and then he's murmuring something about getting that goddamned bra off Elena and_ now_. She makes an appreciative noise before jerking her hand down to the base of his dick where her fingers tease him incessantly. He is painfully hard, and it makes her even wetter to know that it's all because of her.

"Do you have a condom?" Elena asks in a languid purr.

He grunts an affirmative, and she watches as he takes to his bedside table. Elena uses this very short time to unclasp her bra as he's tearing open the packet with his teeth. By the time she's casting her last article of clothing aside, he's almost got himself wrapped up and ready. So, she catches him by the wrist.

"Let me," her eyes twinkle menacingly as she receives the condom from him. Pawing against his chest, she has him lying on his back within moments. Readying it at the tip of his cock, she slowly, slowly envelopes the length of him while never once allowing her eyes to waver from his. She revels silently in the sight of his blue eyes nearly rolling back into his head from the sight of her.

Almost as soon as she has the condom in place, he has her by the hips and on her back. The sight of him above her, dotted with the beginnings of sweat and his hair awry, sends her hormones into overdrive and her heart beating rapidly. She knows in this moment that she's never seen a more beautiful man (and that she probably never will). Damon moves himself against the folds of her pussy, teasing them both as she seeks to wrap her legs around his waist.

"_Damon_," Elena growls before reaching between them again to wrap her fingers around his cock. She guides him to her entrance, and this is all it takes for him to cant forward into her—and suddenly. It takes Elena by pleasant surprise, and she is rises up to meet him without conscious realization.

Both of them cry out together as his hand moves to grasp at her left hip, needing to join them closer together in any way that he could. With her legs trembling, Elena locks her ankles above his waist as he draws out of her only to sheath himself gradually again. She rocks with him now, wordlessly begging for a quicker pace that he is all too content to oblige. It isn't long at all before they've set up a moderate speed that has both of them breathing hard. As Damon buries his face in her hair again, her fingernails drag down the planes of his back.

"Elena," his pace quickens as her name falls from his lips unintentionally. The sound of skin against skin joins the chorus of her quiet mewls and his low groans. Elena is overcome with the waves of pleasure that he sends rushing through her. He has her weak and beseeching.

"Faster," she pleads, angling her legs further up his back so that he can touch her deeper. He thrusts into her faster than before as she jerks her hips up to meet him stroke for stroke. She can feel the burn of her impending orgasm building and building. What had started off as a slow burn has now begun to ignite and escalate. Her fingernails dig into the contours of his back as she pulls him closer to her.

Elena can feel herself tightening around him, her walls gripping at him tighter and tighter with every deft move of his hips. She's about to reach down and circle her clit with her fingers when he beats her to it.

"Just come for me, Elena," he says as he works at her clit at a pace that nearly pains her for the nerves' sensitivity until he hits it just right and reduces her to a quivering heap. As he moves in and out of her, his fingers thrumming over her clit without pause, she finds the force of pleasure in her lower body expanding. He fills her so completely, and she knows it's only a matter of time before he takes her over the edge.

"D-Damon," her voice arrives at a stifled cry.

"That's it, Elena," he rolls his hips quicker still while using his free hand to prop himself up.

The pace doesn't let up in either aspect as she finds the pressure in her lower body building to its pinnacle. One minute, she feels the fire catching, and the next, that tether—at long, long last—snaps. Damon is burying himself deep inside of her as she cries out, tossing her head back. She sighs his name with such unimaginable need as he continues to stimulate to her clit and move within her. Again and again, she says his name, her limbs curling tightly around him as they work together to force him deeper and harder within her. She's seeing white stars and heaven by the time her orgasm is through, and by the way that he pitches his hips forward not moments after her climax's conclusion, she knows he had been holding out for her.

Damon presses his lips to her neck as he moans, jerking into her unconsciously as he loses himself inside of her. The aftershocks of his own orgasm leave him pumping his hips at a lazy pace. As their lips meet, both of them are smiling. She kisses him, and he threads their fingers above him. Elena could have laid there with him for hours for all the fatigue and pleasant release that she felt, but instead, she flips them over and decides to take him for another ride while they still have the house to themselves.

She would leave feeling shocked or guilty for the morning after. For now, she has exactly what she wants, and she intends to take full advantage of it—come what may.


	2. Senior Year Struggle

**Thank you all so much for the feedback, and thanks be to my great beta, as well! Now on to the _really_ fun part.**

* * *

An odd ray of sunlight rouses Elena from a deep sleep. Bleary-eyed and heavy of limb, it takes a moment for her vision to settle before she recognizes her environment as well as the circumstances surrounding it. Another heartbeat and her body is flushed with heat as she recalls last night. Her eyes naturally drift to her left where she spots a still-sleeping Damon Salvatore.

_God damn, he's beautiful._ Elena's mind is paralyzed by the sight of this man—a hundred times more striking in this pleasant state of peaceful vulnerability. It's almost painful how her palm itches to touch him, to brush aside a stray tuft of black hair, but she easily resists. At any rate, her mind and body are still humming from their late night encounters. They had taken turns exerting dominance and passion into the early hours of the morning. He had shown Elena some moves and hidden talents that she had never before experienced with a sexual partner, and he had left her muscles pleasantly sore in his wake. Truthfully, she toys with the idea of just crawling back into his bed—and his arms—and just slipping back into the tranquil lull of sleep.

Of course it's her mind that sets her straight. It's not that she's put-off by the idea of cuddling (god, no!). After all, she's a downright snuggle machine when the time and mood are right. In fact, it's just that—the time and mood are both wrong. The moment just isn't there. _He's a one-night stand, Gilbert. Get your shit together. _ Still, it is awfully tempting, which she knows is her inevitable sign to get the hell out of there and fast.

Elena exhales, her chest expanding as she allows herself to sit up and the sheets to fall away. She sits with her upper body completely exposed while her teeth comb over her bottom lip. How she wishes there could be an odd moment where she may entertain the idea of breakfast with this man who is so utterly beyond description. Her personal acceptance of a free and uninhibited sex life doesn't excuse her breed as a hopeless romantic. For half a moment, she imagines the pair of them slipping into their clothes, fresh of face but still heavy-lidded. Perhaps they would share a good morning kiss before Elena puts on his shirt to wear and pads nimbly to the kitchen. He would surprise her with his uncanny knack at the stove and—

_Stop it; stop it; _stop it._ Out of bed. Get out of bed, _now. Doing as her mind has warned her, Elena pries herself from beneath sheets and covers. Settling on her heels, she plucks her undergarments from the floor and quickly dresses herself. By the time she has her tight slip of a dress back on, she's gazing back in Damon's direction where he's sleeping like a goddamned baby. Again, she starts to nibble at her lower lip. In spite of her presumed better judgment, she doesn't want to just leave him; whether or not this is a fuck and run is irrelevant. Her attraction to him didn't abate with the rise of the sun. The connection is still there and glaringly so. _Oh, fuck it. _ Wetting her lips, she tip-toes over to his side of the bed and quietly seizes his phone from the nightstand. With agile fingers, she punches her phone number into his directory under her first name only. She reasons that if he wants to contact her again, he will, and decides to leave it at that as she gently replaces his cell phone. Her fingers begin to twitch, and she finds herself staring at him again.

With the covers having fallen to the peaks of his hips, there is a delicious expanse of exposed skin in their wake. Elena discovers her mouth coming up cotton-dry as her eyes allow themselves a final moment's appreciation. His abdominals are sick—actually and wholly ridiculous, and oh, the rest of him. The hand clutching onto her heels tightens around the straps of her shoes. Elena really needs to go. So, she does.

Successfully ignoring the feral urge to plant a departing kiss to his parted lips, she ambles out of his room and his home while trying to convince herself that she doesn't even give the slightest shit if she never sees him again. _Surely, there are prettier men out there_, her mind rambles on. _Prettier men with sicker abs and even bluer eyes._

The moment she's out the door, Elena is hauling ass back to her house for a bitter reality check and an even colder shower.

**. . .**

After what Elena muses may have been the longest, coldest shower of her life, she decides to check in on Stefan and Caroline. A part of Elena is genuinely surprised to be met with Caroline's chipper tone, even if it is nearing noon. Though it isn't a shock coming from Caroline, it is a wonder that she isn't still in bed with her two boys. It is with almost unflinching and patriotic guilt that Elena recognizes that she probably has an exaggerated view of their surely simulating and outstanding sex lives.

Somewhere between Caroline's melodic giggles and Elena's question dodging, they decide to meet up for coffee and tea at the local café—which is where Elena is heading now. Having effectively cleansed herself of her walk of shame couture, Elena approaches her friends now with a fresh face and dress. In a red belted, navy-and-white striped summer dress, she looks less the part of a sexual predator on the prowl and more of her part of an up and coming senior in high school. Smoothing down the front of her outfit, she strolls over to where Stefan and Caroline have chosen a small outside table.

"Hello, lovebirds," Elena greets the couple holding hands with a furtive grin. Both of them are smiling widely and positively glowing, and it doesn't take a mathematician to figure out why. Settling down in her seat across from the pair, Elena lifts her brows. "Fun night?"

Caroline almost instantly dissolves into giggles while she squeezes Stefan's hand and presumably pats his thigh with the other.

"Very!" she exclaims, casting a satisfied look in her boyfriend's direction. "But enough about _us_, Elena. We want to know about _you_."

Elena, who had been mentally preparing herself for this moment, tries to look as casual and nonchalant as humanly possible. There is no need to harp on the details, particularly in front of Stefan.

"What about me?" says Elena as she quickly parrots her order of a straight black coffee with two extra shots of espresso to the waiter.

"You know damn well what!" Caroline huffs, her subtle excitement and pride masked by her feigned outrage. "Bonnie saw you slink away with Stefan's brother Damon last night, and then we never heard from you again."

"Matt was convinced you'd been kidnapped," Stefan pipes in with a laid-back smirk, his thumb circling the back of Caroline's palm idly.

"Kidnapped?" Elena rolls her eyes as the waiter returns with her simple order. "Tell Matt all his worrying will have him bald, wrinkled, and successfully un-dateable by twenty if he doesn't let up."

The couple across from Elena both laugh as the brunette snatches up three packets of Sweet'N Low and pours them unceremoniously into her cup of coffee.

"Seriously, Elena," presses her blond friend after Elena takes her first sip. "You ditched us. The least you can tell us is what the hell happened last night."

"I didn't ditch you," she defends herself between intakes of caffeine, her blood warm and pulsing. "I just… stepped out."

"Yeah! For the rest of the evening!"

A blush has already begun to creep up the length of Elena's neck as she remembers the events from the night before. Her mind wanders to their impassioned encounter on the dance floor to their explosive coupling at the Salvatore estate not long after. If Caroline thinks she's getting anything more than the PG rated recollection then she will be sorely disappointed. Elena's eyes flash to Stefan.

"Look, I seriously don't want to talk about this with—"

"Oh, my _god_, you slept with him!"

"Caroline!"

"You totally did! I knew it!"

"Could you let me—"

"Stefan, I told you!"

Elena groans. Setting down her cup, she suddenly wishes that she hadn't chosen to wear her hair up. She wants to drag her fingers through her hair, anything to make this feeling of embarrassment lessen. Pursing her lips, she uses every last ounce of her remaining strength to meet Stefan's eye.

"Look, I…"

Stefan quirks an eyebrow at her.

"What? It's not like you need my permission," he laughs and playfully knocks Caroline with his elbow. "I'm not the one giving you the third degree."

"But I slept with your brother," Elena supplies with a ridiculous but guilty smile.

"Yes, and I'm dating your best friend and another guy," he teasingly kicks his foot into Elena's beneath the table. "I think you've earned your right to be a bit devious."

"Devious?" larks Elena, appearing jokingly outraged. "Don't forget that I've got plenty of dirt on you, Salvatore. Forget the two lovers. I'll cut straight to the fourth grade Christmas pageant."

Stefan turns cherry red, sending both Caroline and Elena into hysterics. Stuffing the remainder of his glazed donut in his mouth, he simply shakes his head, presumably deciding to change the subject.

"The point is," Stefan attests. "It doesn't matter, and anyway…" There's a moment's hesitation where he locks eyes with his girlfriend who looks downright uptight. "Caroline and I… sort of… well…"

These enigmatic words hang in the air as no one seems to want to complete them. Downing another gulp of coffee, Elena knits her brow as she gazes expectantly at her friends. In the end, it's unsurprisingly Caroline who comes through for her.

"Wekindofsetyouup," she says in a jumble, too fast for Elena to make out at first.

"You what?"

"We… kind of set you two up," looking guilty as sin itself, Caroline bows her head to tend to one of her plain sugar cookies while Stefan takes a mouthful of herbal tea. It takes a moment for it to truly sink in before Elena's blood rushes to her face.

"I should have known something was up," Elena shakes her head, laughing mildly. For a good few seconds, her friends look rather surprised at her reaction. "What?" she continues. "Do you want me to be upset, or something?"

"Well, no," Caroline blinks, running her tongue across her lips. "It's just… well, uhm, you usually are."

"That's because these things have always gone wrong."

"So this one didn't!" her friend practically screams, her eyes glittering brightly as she nearly kicks off her chair. "Oh, Elena, tell me! Tell me everything!"

Elena's eyes flash apologetically to Stefan who just gives her an encouraging smile. For his sake, she would spare the dirty details for girl-talk later. She's certain he doesn't what to know of his older brother's sexual pedigree, and Elena doesn't blame him one bit.

"We just… really hit it off. I mean, did you see him? He's gorgeous."

Caroline beams, squeezing Stefan's hand in hers.

"The Salvatore gene pool _is _wonderful, isn't it?"

"We danced, and…"

Elena stops here, contemplating her wording. 'We danced, and then spent the rest of the night having wild, crazy animal sex'; 'we danced, and then I told him to take me back to his place'; or 'we danced, and then I was ready to rip both of our clothes off.' All of them sound equally appalling.

"You left with him," Caroline comes to her rescue with a knowing smirk. "Yeah, Matt saw. So, where did you go?"

_So much for the rescue attempt_, Elena mulls over drearily. She ultimately comes to the conclusion to just let the ball drop as quickly and easily as possible.

"I went home with him."

"He works fast," appraises Caroline over a sip of her latte.

"It was sort of my idea," Elena tries not to wince as she delivers these words to the full effect. Even Stefan looks taken aback at first (though he courteously masks it a moment later with a smile). Caroline, on the other hand, looks about to burst with pride.

"I'm so proud of you! God, you usually take so long to get to know guys, and—oh, Elena! Way to get some," she boasts, clapping her hands together appreciatively. "So, tell me, is he good?"

Even though Elena knows she should have been prepared for this exact question, she isn't. The moment the words leave Caroline's mouth, she is frozen with discomfiture and left drinking in what little is left of her coffee in some vain attempt to thwart the inquiry.

"Care, not now," she groans. "Later."

"That means he was!"

"_Caroline_," Stefan is trying not to laugh—whether out of discomfort or humor, Elena isn't certain.

"Okay, okay," the blonde in question rolls her eyes. "I'll grill you on those details later when it's just you, me, and Bonnie."

Choosing the diplomatic approach, Elena decides to pick her battles. She nods, leaving it at that as her eyes sweep back to Stefan.

"But in all seriousness, what is Damon doing back here?" Elena asks a little too casually in an attempt to sound only moderately interested. "Last I heard he was still finishing up his Master's in Georgia."

"Oh, he finished his Master's two years ago," Stefan grins at her coolly. "He's been going on road trips and backpacking overseas. Said something about small-town life making his skin itch."

"Sounds like someone else we know," Caroline trills impishly to which Elena rolls her eyes.

"So, what's he doing back here, then?"

Stefan shrugs.

"He didn't say, and believe me, I asked."

"The mysterious type," purrs Caroline.

"Stop it," Elena says at last before balling up her napkin and chucking it at her friend's face. "Enough about my sex life. Tell me about yours," a smirk stretches lazily across her lips as she ogles her friends across the table. Where Caroline looks positively glowing and smug, Stefan appears a bit bashful; then again, they always did bring out the weirdest qualities in each other. "Date night go okay?"

"Perfect," Caroline maintains, her eyes shining. "Right, Stefan?"

"Yes," her boyfriend echoes, squeezing her hand (and thus making Elena want to gag—but for them she resists the urge).

"Klaus seems like an okay guy," persists Elena. "Very old-fashioned and very… British."

"Isn't his accent just _something_?" Caroline preens.

"Very Pride & Prejudice."

"Right?"

Elena allows the air to settle for a moment before she veers the subject in a slightly different direction.

"Honestly, so long as he treats you two right, he could be a backwoods country bumpkin for all I care."

"Thanks, Elena," Caroline's appreciation is genuine, as is Stefan's. The couple smile appreciatively at their mutual friend as the brunette under scrutiny reaches across the table to pat their cupped hands.

"But enough about romance," says Elena, deliberately rising to her feet. "Don't we have some senior class schedules to pick up?"

Caroline groans as she ducks her head into Stefan's shoulder.

"Don't remind me. Can't we just, you know, _not_?"

"Some of us actually _want_ to see the teachers and classes we're stuck with for our last year of high school, Care."

Another tortured sound weasels its way out of Caroline's lips as she lifts her head.

"Like English IV with Scary Mary."

"Come on, Caroline," Stefan chuckles. "She's not that bad."

"She flunked last year's Valedictorian just weeks before Graduation!"

"That's because he stopped showing up to class."

"Do you really need to when your father's the chief of police?!"

Elena and Stefan snort to themselves before the latter helps his girlfriend up.

"You may not even have her," he prevails, patting her on the shoulder.

"If I do I'm switching out," Caroline states with finality as they start the short walk to Mystic Falls High School. They talk amongst themselves as they walk and Elena smiles furtively as she considers the pleasant normalcy that her friends have gifted her with since her parents' accident. In spite of Caroline's neurotic behavior, she is a beacon of light in trying moments such as this. Staring their adult futures in the face, her friend's casual worries of class placement make everything seem less severe, if only for a minute or two.

**. . .**

By the time they arrive at the high school, many students are already bustling about. Some look absolutely elated while others seem positively bummed. In this way, it's the same exact scene Elena is accustomed to every schedule pick-up since freshman year. It's comforting, so she continues to smile as they push past the glass doors to the foyer.

"Too bad Bonnie bailed on us for some Jeremy time," frets Caroline while fighting the urge to chew on her newly manicured nails. "I want to know her schedule by heart before Wednesday."

"I'm sure you will," Elena reassures her sardonically. "It's not like you've ever failed us before."

Eyeing the four lines that arranged the students alphabetically by their last names (A-G, H-N, O-U, V-Z), Elena whisks her arm through Caroline's before briefly bidding Stefan goodbye.

"C'mon, Forbes, this way."

Wiggling her fingers to her retreating lover, Caroline moves to join Elena in their line—which is, thankfully, not very long. They're up at the front looking down at Alaric Saltzman (who they both had for European History in junior year) within just a few minutes.

"Hi, Mr. Saltzman," Elena greets him pleasantly, still rather unaccustomed to referring to him by his proper name. He has, after all, been seriously involved with Elena's aunt Jenna for almost two years now.

"I think Ric's safe to use here, Elena," he abides with a grin as he shuffles through his stack of student schedules. "Hello, Caroline."

"Hello, Ric!" she insists on his casual name, as well, as the history teacher reaches out to hand them both their schedules. Stepping off to the side to allow other students to be able to get their own, Elena reads over hers unceremoniously.

_French IV, British & World Literature, AP Psychology, Digital Arts I & II, AP Calculus, US Government & Politics_… all of those are fine and well until the last one. Under assigned teacher it simply says _'TBA.' _Her eyes dart up and over to Alaric, and she pads closer.

"Hey, Ric."

"Yep?"

"Doesn't Coach Williams usually teach US Government & Politics?"

"Yeah," for whatever reason, Ric smirks. "They finally decided to sack him in favor for a teacher who actually has a degree in US History."

Elena's eyes light up curiously.

"So, a new teacher? Who? Do you know them?"

"Ease up," Ric grins dismissively. "Nothing's final yet. That's why the TBA's still there."

At this, Elena's eyes instantly narrow.

"You _do_ know them."

"Let's just say, that if this friend of mine winds up with the job, I won't be the only happy camper at Mystic Falls High."

"What does that even mean?" Elena wills a small laugh.

"Nothing," he subjects her to further secrecy as he turns his attention back to the students in his line. "See you in school on Wednesday, Elena," then in a lower voice, he adds: "Tell Jenna I'm still free for tonight's dinner, all right?"

"Sure."

Casting him one final look of playful disdain, Elena steps back to where Caroline and Stefan are talking amongst themselves. Though, a more accurate description would include Caroline gesturing wildly as Stefan tries his best to avoid her ridiculous hand movements.

"First period US Government & Politics," she whines. "Elena, just kill me. Kill me now."

"It could _way_ be worse," Elena eyes her humorously.

"So much for weekday sleepovers if I want to be conscious for that boring class at all," Caroline bemoans, pouting up at Stefan.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," he reassures her, palming at her hips.

"Yeah, I guess," continuing to pout, Caroline momentarily drags herself out from her self-centered reflection. "Hey, Elena, who do you have for US G&P?"

"It just says TBA."

"Same for us, too! What period?"

"Same as you."

Caroline's entire face lights up.

"Thank god!" she exhales and runs up to Elena to grasp lightly at her arms; this news seems to have abolished her previous blues almost entirely if only because of the prospect of having one of her best friends and boyfriends present to suffer with her. "I wonder who our teacher will be. Personally, I'm glad we didn't get stuck with Coach Williams. He smells like tobacco and sweaty socks."

"_Caroline_."

"It's completely true."

"If you say so," Elena simply dismisses the idea with a smile. "Well, rest assured, Ric says the replacement will be good."

"And maybe hot," Caroline wriggles her eyebrows to which Stefan just shares a knowing look with Elena.

"Rein in that teenage libido, Forbes."

"Oh, please," snorts Caroline as she winds her arm around Stefan's slender waist. "Everyone knows I'm spoken for. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate the faculty."

Elena folds up her schedule and tucks it away into her purse. She is trying her hardest to fight off a serious case of the giggles.

"You're unbelievable."

"You love me."

"The year is young."

**. . .**

On the morning of her first day of school, Elena considers that the last three days have been some of the longest of her life. Between Caroline's insistence that she, Bonnie, and Elena cram in as much girl time as possible, and the fact that Elena can't seem to get Damon Salvatore off her mind (no matter how goddamned hard she tries), it's been her own special kind of hell.

Elena doesn't want to be _that _girl. Seriously, honestly, and genuinely—she doesn't want to be the girl that agonizes over whether or not a boy calls or texts her back. After all, it had been just sex. It's not as though they were or are dating. It was sex—pure and simple, uncomplicated and straightforward.

_So, why hasn't he called?_ She can't stop the words from ringing through her mind, though she almost instantly regrets them. Elena groans and does a face-plant into her comforter. _Nope_, she decides. _Nope, not gonna go there. _As enchanting as he had been, as sexy, as intoxicating, as toe-curling—

_Elena. No. Nonono. _

Needing an instant distraction, she strips down to her underwear and heatedly throws on her clothes. Today, she's opted for her usual dark jeans, Chuck Taylors, a red v-neck, and one of her slightly older bomber jackets. Unlike Caroline, she isn't in the mood for the _beauty is pain _look. With all the events Mystic Falls throws throughout the year, Elena is fully aware that there will be many times and many places for her to break out her stilettos and knee-high dresses. For now, she simply wants to be comfortable. She wholly believes she'll be thanking herself for this come last period.

After giving her appearance one final once-over in her dresser mirror, she concludes that this is as good as it's going to get and starts for her bedroom door. She isn't surprised at all when she hears the blare of Caroline's Ford Fiesta sound from outside. Draping her backpack over one shoulder, Elena plucks two pieces of toast from the toaster as she stuffs her house keys into her pocket.

"Bye, Jenna!" she calls out to the seemingly empty house. When her aunt doesn't reply, she's left to assume she's either still asleep or that she's spent the night with Ric. Either one is highly plausible.

Taking a bite from her toast, she walks outside and is immediately met with a frantically waving Caroline and a rather chill-looking Bonnie.

"Get in, loser! Do you wanna be late for first period, or what?"

"Care, we're about thirty minutes early," Elena laughs through her toast as she slides into the back seat behind Bonnie.

"Says you. Early is on-time; on-time is late; and late is punishable by death, Elena, we have been through this!"

Elena finishes off the rest of her first piece of toast before meeting Bonnie's eye mischievously.

"She's been like this since 4 A.M."

"Oh, god. You _did not_ ask for the Caroline Forbes wakeup call, Bonnie Bennett! That's a rookie mistake!"

"And one I won't make again," Bonnie says at once as Caroline elbows her.

"I took you to Waffle House!"

"At what cost?" a grin is fighting its way on Bonnie's face.

"The sound of my beautiful voice—"

"—jarring her awake at 4 A.M. on the first day of senior year," Elena finishes for her. Immediately, Caroline flips both of them the bird, causing both girls to burst into laughter. The rest of their ride is full of laughs, their hopes for the day, and Caroline threatening to dump both of her passengers out on the side of the road as a form of friendship probation.

As they pull into the senior parking lot, Elena and Bonnie are just happy to have made it there in one piece at all.

"No gratitude," Caroline is grumbling as she shuts her door and punches the lock button. "None whatsoever."

"All right, Ice Princess," teases Bonnie while situating her backpack over her shoulder.

Decidedly tired of her ruse, Caroline can't help but smile. It ignites a sort of chain reaction in Elena, as well. The normalcy she had been reflecting on comes crashing down on her again, and she breathes in deeply.

"You ready?" she asks her friends just as all of their heads pan to the front of the school where students are filing in.

"Hell yeah we are!" cries Caroline, throwing one of her fists in the air.

"What this idiot said," Bonnie says with a smile as she flashes Caroline a grin with teeth.

"Okay," Elena begins to stride toward the building, momentarily stolen from the moment as her right jeans' pocket buzzes. She assumes it will be Jenna wishing her well or maybe Jeremy telling her he's just now gotten his ass out of bed, but her jaw nearly falls to the concrete when she sees something entirely unexpected.

_From: Damon  
Sorry. Been a tough few days. I would love to see you again. ;)_

It takes all of Elena's strength not to let her phone go crashing to the ground in pieces for how sweaty her hands suddenly feel. With her heart in her throat and her mouth unreasonably dry, she grips harder at her cell phone, abruptly painfully aware that she has apparently stopped walking… and that her friends have, too.

"Elena, you okay?" Caroline looks at her oddly.

"… yeah."

Elena's eyes are still glued to the screen of her phone. She reads the words over and over and over again as though her examination of them is all that's keeping them on the plane of reality.

"Who is it? What's with the _someone-just-ran-over-my-puppy_ look?" presses Caroline as she glides toward her in an attempt to get a peek at the phone which Elena promptly conceals.

"Nothing. No one."

"Is it—wait," there's a definite pause as Caroline appears to visibly access the situation. Then, her eyes grow wide with realization. "Oh, my god."

Against all of her resistance, Elena's cheeks start to burn. She knows she's been busted. Her face is an open fucking book.

"Is it Damon? Did he _finally _text you?"

There's no use in denying it now, Elena figures.

"Ah, yeah," Elena sucks in her breath through her teeth as they begin walking again. The shock is beginning to ebb now, leaving her a bit flustered and (embarrassingly enough) relieved. "He did." The pride that settles in her voice only works toward making her feel even worse about herself and her reaction. _Way to be completely smooth, Gilbert. Way to be entirely _that _girl._

"Well, what did he say?" Bonnie seeks to pry, her eyes just as devilish as Caroline's as the girls round the corner. Luckily for them, Bonnie had been placed in a class just across the hall from Elena and Caroline's shared first period. They didn't have to part just yet.

"Just," hesitating for a moment, Elena entertains the thought of keeping the message to herself. She breaks her own consideration not even a heartbeat later, "that he would like to see me again."

Both of her friends coo. But it's Caroline who is first to offer her self-proclaimed _professional _assessment.

"He totally likes you! You've gotta text him back," she states firmly while giving Elena's arm an affirmative squeeze.

"Not right away."

"It's been, like, a minute, Elena. For god's sake, text the man back!"

Elena rolls her eyes as she looks back to her phone. Nibbling on her bottom lip, she hesitates with her thumb ghosting over the touch-screen. As they near the doorway of their classroom and wish Bonnie good luck, she has them promise to fill her in on all the dirty details later. Elena still struggles with her response, as though it's supposed to be something groundbreaking.

_This isn't some academy award-winning romantic comedy, Elena; this is your life. Pull yourself together. You're seventeen. This is just some guy._

Okay.

O-kay.

Passing the threshold shortly after Caroline, Elena heads toward the middle of the rows of seats with her fingers poised to reply to Damon. She's just about to hit 'send' when her eyes are drawn to the front of the room by the sight of a very familiar man in a very familiar leather jacket with very familiar too-blue eyes and very familiar unkempt black hair. It's only willpower and skin that keeps all of her internal organs from descending to the floor as she desperately seeks to melt into a puddle of rabid disbelief.

Then, in the same cocky tone of voice, in the same suave slur of speech, Damon turns to face the entire class.

"Good morning, seniors. My name is Damon Salvatore, and I'll be your US Government & Politics teacher."

Elena's heart stops dead.


	3. Demolition of a Delicate Kind

**My apologies for this extraordinarily late update, but I think I've finally got my muse back in check. Thanks to my beta, as always!**

* * *

"Oh, my god."

The words trickle from Elena's lips, surprising her as she sways precariously into her seat. Her head is spinning, her vision swimming. Beside her, Caroline is muttering something heatedly, something about Stefan being moved to a different class and then _fucking _shit _Elena oh my god is that _Damon_. _Everything seems to click and come together at once after that; and to add to the budding dramatic hilarity of it all, Damon still hasn't noticed her.

"Caroline," she chokes out her friend's name as she reaches for her hand and takes it in hers. Elena is trying to make sense of this moment. So, she squeezes Caroline's hand and _hard_.

"Ow!" hisses Caroline between her teeth. "Circulation. Cutting off circulation."

"Caroline, he's our—"

"Teacher, yeah, I can see that."

They're talking in low voices as Damon continues to write what may as well be a foreign language on the whiteboard. Elena can't focus. Her head is still alive and pulsing with the reality of the situation (which still hasn't fully sunk in yet, mind you). With a mouth as dry as sand, she contemplates standing up and running out of the room—or, preferably, out of the entire school building (or perhaps the whole country itself, which she knows is infinitely melodramatic, but right now she really just can't be bothered to care). Her heart continues to thump crudely inside her chest, leaving Elena to watch in suspended horror as Damon turns around to sweep his gaze over his class. At once, she ducks her head and pretends to be anywhere but here.

"Caroline, what am I supposed to do?" Elena whispers in a frenzy to her friend as her brown locks work almost ineffectually to conceal her face.

"I don't know!" her friend exclaims a bit too loudly, drawing a few glances their way and causing Elena's skin to burn.

"_Shhh_!"

"Sorry," Caroline looks genuine as she leans a little nearer Elena. "Look, I just—there isn't exactly a best friend handbook for teacher-student relationsh—"

Reaching over with her foot, Elena stomps it down hard on Caroline's. The little whimper that follows only goes unheard because in that moment Damon says something that brings almost everyone in the class to laughter. Meanwhile, Elena is contemplating hyperventilation or tears.

"Hang on," murmurs Caroline as she peeks at her phone. "Stefan's texting me. 'Tell Elena I had no idea,' he says in all caps… with a lot of exclamation points."

Elena wants to bury her face in her hands.

"Tell _Stefan_, a lot of help _that_ does."

"According to him, Damon never even mentioned this."

"I believe that," Elena mutters sarcastically beneath her breath as she wills her eyes up to the front of the room. He has begun the roll call now, and she feels ill. This is twenty times worse than any walk of shame that she has ever endured.

"Amber Bradley…"

"Caroline," Elena whines while her friend looks at her helplessly. In that moment, she realizes that there is actually nothing she can do short of running out of the room, and even that wouldn't erase her name from the roll call. So, she holds her breath and prepares herself for the worst.

But it's almost as though the moment never comes. He reads off her name as stoic and plaintive as any other with the only difference being the short pause that comes before he says it—one that would go unnoticeable by anyone but her. Still, she can feel his eyes on her for a moment. They linger, as hot as any sun, before returning to his list. She exhales and allows her shoulders to relax; she hadn't realized how tense her body had become under the weight of his stare.

Damon continues calling attendance and then resumes the introduction to his class all rather routinely. Elena isn't sure if she should feel relieved or ten times as anxious. Between Caroline shooting her glances out of the corners of her eyes and Damon stealing looks her way as though she's under scientific scrutiny, nothing can settle the bubbling nerves in Elena's stomach.

_Is he seriously angry?_ Elena wonders indignantly by the way that a muscle in Damon's jaw (one that she remembers all too fondly and well) seems to tick. As though this is her fault!

_Chill out_, she demands herself, _as if either of us expected…_ this_._ With her eyes eclipsed by a curtain of her hair, Elena resolves to spend the rest of the fifty-minute class trying not to think about the imminent and awkward conversation that is in the very near future. She doesn't even bother to take relevant notes. Amid her mind's persistence with showing flashbacks of her steamy night with Damon Salvatore this past weekend and the constant ricochet of his pleasured moans in her head, she accomplishes much by simply keeping still in her seat. _Of all the times to be horny, Elena, Jesus fucking Christ._

The shrill yell of the school bell pierces through Elena's saturated cloud of hormones and apprehension. She nearly splinters her no. 2 pencil in half for all the attention she had been paying, and soon Caroline leaps adamantly to her side to hover near her ear with her eager lips.

"Are you gonna go talk to him?" she demands fiercely. Honestly, gods bless Caroline and all she has been there for, but Elena has to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep back a chilly retort.

"Do I have a choice?" Elena tries to reply coolly, but her nerves get the better of her and leave her sounding meaner than intended. Feeling sympathetic, Caroline frowns dolefully.

"Well…"

"Miss Gilbert."

Damon calls her from behind his desk at the front of the classroom just as the last few students are stumbling out of the room. Caroline is suddenly standing bolt upright as though she has just been caught doing something heinous. She tucks a few strands of her hair behind her ear.

"Uhm… I'll catch you later, Elena," she says after clearing her throat in a way that suggests she will be waiting to pounce on her friend as soon as she leaves Damon's—er, Mr. Salvatore's—class.

"Later, Care," Elena offers her flatly, wishing her pseudo-sister would get the hint that she really didn't want to talk to anyone after what she is about to face. (With the giant, scandalous grin that follows, she knows that Caroline doesn't get this message, though. Wonderful.)

Drawing in a quiet yet sizable intake of air, Elena rises from her seat and turns her eyes to Damon. Caroline has drawn the door shut behind her, leaving just the two of them. Although, it's clear they're on borrowed time. There is only five minutes between classes, given that there's no break occurring between first and second period today. They would have to get this over with and fast. She stands at his desk with feigned leisure.

"_Mr._ Salvatore," Elena greets him almost mockingly. Her nerves have this damnable tendency to make her inner, sort of warped and unconventional Napoleon complex come out to play. She silently berates herself—something she is left to do for longer than she would have ever wanted, given that he has adopted a vow of sweltering and boisterous silence. Surely a parental chastisement would be kinder than this.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Damon orders with quivering ferocity after what seems like millennia. Though Elena knows that she should keep a level and mature head about herself, the way that he grasps at his desk with very clear body language that he thinks this is all her fault sets her the fuck off.

"'Hi, I'm Elena Gilbert, and I'm going to be your student next week'? And before or after we left a trail of clothes from your front porch to the bedroom?"

By the manner in which his knuckles whiten, Elena guesses that Damon is trying to keep from completely losing his cool.

"That you were underage, Elena!"

"Oh, so you're telling me that Stefan just happened to leave out that little detail or that you can't put two-and-two together?"

Oops. That is definitely not what she meant to say.

Elena crosses her arms just as Damon strides out from behind his desk.

"For fuck's sake, you were in a 21-and-up only bar!"

"With your seventeen-year-old brother and his eighteen-year-old girlfriend and our seventeen- and eighteen-year-old friends," Elena has given up reeling in her annoyance with him at this point.

Silence stretches out between them, leaving them locked in a stare that sends Elena's heartbeat racing. From beneath his eyelashes, he looks at her. Damon's gaze is severe and pensive. She reckons she can practically see the gears turning and turning in his head as he attempts to make something of these unsolicited circumstances. Her mouth goes dry as he takes another step toward her. The heat that he exudes drives her mad.

But a rap on the door quickly reminds them of their time and place.

Damon diverts his path from Elena and winds up behind his desk again, effectively severing any cosmic tie that had been wrung up between them.

"Forget it happened," he says matter-of-factly as he begins to rustle through some papers. The student who had knocked on the door opens it shyly, and others begin to file in after him. Elena is boiling, wants to let Damon have it for insisting that they put their explicit encounter completely out of their minds, but as more seniors pour in and fill the chairs she knows that she's lost her chance. So she sets her shoulders and tenses her jaw.

"Fine," snaps Elena, drawing her bag over her shoulder. She catches his eyes one final time with a glare fastened to her smoldering features, and then she promptly exits the room.

For whatever reason, she feels like crying. Though she easily combats this urge, she swipes her tongue over her lips and breathes in and out deeply. Everything was fine. Everything would be fine. Things could be worse. It's not as though she's a student in her last year of high school who just unknowingly slept with her teacher—her teacher that she is still very much attracted to, her teacher that she would see almost every morning for the next two-hundred days of her life.

_Fuck._

Elena wrings her fingers through her hair, almost slamming into Caroline as she rounds the corner of the hallway.

"Shit!"

"Sorry!" Caroline frowns ruefully while Elena clutches at her chest. "You don't look so good."

Hardly in the mood to indulge this conversation, Elena's eyes wander over to where Stefan stands, looking absolutely ashamed.

"Elena, look, I—"

"It's okay, Stef," Elena tells him in earnest. "This isn't your fault."

Her friend sighs heavily as he steps forward to meet her.

"We did step you two up," he murmurs remorsefully as they all begin to walk. They don't have too much time to spare before they reach their next class.

"We knew you liked older guys, and, well…" Caroline chimes in from Elena's left side, the corners of her lips turning down.

"Guys, seriously," Elena groans. "I don't blame you. I just really, really do not want to talk about it anymore right now."

This seems to get the happy couple to fall quiet, if only for a second.

"I'm going to stop by the office and see if I can get switched out of his class. Damon says he just wants to forget this weekend ever happened."

"Are you kidding me?" Caroline gapes. "Dick move."

"What choice do we- I mean, does _he_ have, Caroline?" Elena stops mid-step to turn to her best friend. In spite of her frustration, however, she still thinks to lower her voice. "Seriously, Care, if people ever find out about… _you know_, he would never be able to teach again. Or it'd be pretty hard for him to."

_Fuck. Seriously, just… fuck._

The more Elena considers the situation, the more fucked up it feels and sounds. (And the award for understatement of the year goes to Elena Gilbert.) Granted, she hadn't known that she was sleeping with a teacher (or more importantly, her teacher) at the time, but that doesn't change the results. Sparks had flown and something just short of magic had happened, and now it would be over. She could deal with this. In any event, it wouldn't be the first time.

The dealing with it part. Not the sleeping with a teacher part.

(For that, he's popped her proverbial cherry.)

_Jesus fucking Christ, Elena, this isn't fucking funny._

(But it is _kind of_ funny. In a, 'haha, I'm so fucked, what even is my life?' kind of funny.)

"Look, I'll see you guys later, okay?" Elena sighs before remembering that they, in fact, have second period in just under another minute or two. Her eyes shift to Stefan. "Hey, you and I have French IV together next, right?" he nods. "Could you just tell Madame Carmody that I'm not feeling well and went to see the nurse?"

"Sure," Stefan still looks guilty, but Elena knows he'll eventually talk himself out of it. Elena and he have been best friends for years. She knows full well that he would have never intentionally landed her in this position. It was a mistake, had been a mistake. If it is anyone's fault, it's Elena's, and she knows it. Tired of psychoanalyzing herself, she gives both of her friends a hug prior to padding quietly off toward the school's front office.

_I can fix this_, is the mantra on repeat in her head. So, the school year is going off at a bit of a rough start. She's had rougher. Her mind drifts back to end of last semester, to the car accident and the deaths of her parents. Though the memory still stings, she considers that sleeping with a teacher isn't the worst she's ever been through. At any rate, it's what she tells herself as she gingerly pushes open the door and presents herself to the authoritative woman behind the front desk.

"Hi, Ms. Holden," she greets her with as much of a smile as she can muster. It's pretty pitiful, but the secretary doesn't appear to mind. Though, it probably helps that she's known Elena's family for her entire life.

"Hello, Elena," Ms. Holden returns her smile. "What can I do for you?"

For several seconds, Elena holds her breath. She is rationally aware that no one but her friends and Damon (_Mr. Salvatore, Elena. He is Mr. Salvatore to you now_.) know about the events that have led her to request this schedule change, but that doesn't help with the anxiety. Somehow, she feels as though people can read her thoughts and see beneath the ruse. For some reason or another, this secret feels larger than life, even if she is working toward putting an abrupt end to it. Swallowing hard, she clears her throat uneasily and unfolds her class schedule to present it to the other woman.

"I was, uh, wondering if I could possibly switch out of Mr. Salvatore's class and into another."

The office worker takes her schedule from her and immediately furrows her eyebrows while glancing over it.

"Elena, you are aware that class is required in order for you to graduate, correct?"

Heat begins to slither up Elena's neck, and she has to remind herself to calm down. She is doing the right thing. She has nothing to act suspicious about. All Elena needs to remember to do is to keep her cool and breathe.

"Yeah, of course," she tries to laugh to idea off blithely, but she winds up looking far more flustered than she intends. She moves to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. "I just… wanted a different teacher, is all."

Ms. Holden blinks up at her through her glasses as she reaches for a pen.

"Is there any particular reason why you don't want Mr. Salvatore as your teacher?

_Don't say conflict of interest. Don't say conflict of interest. Don't say conflict of interest._

"Conflict of… int…erest?"

_Elena, are you fucking serious?_

Now the secretary is looking at her like she's started speaking in tongues. It's not that the reason is particularly shady or anything, so much as the way Elena's presented it. Elena has appeared nothing but uncomfortable and on edge since she has walked in this office. She is a walking hotbed of suspicious behavior. _I suck so much. _The least Elena can do at this point is try not to burst into tears of frustration and run out of the room screaming.

(She really doesn't need a psychiatric record on her plate after all she's been through.)

"I mean, you know, I've known him since I was a kid," here she goes, babbling. "Best friends with his younger brother since I was in diapers and all that. Stefan's his brother. Stefan Salvatore." She isn't really sure what she's even going on about anymore, but Ms. Holden seems to understand.

"Oh," is all she says in response to her explanation, though, which silently drives Elena wild in all the wrong ways. Even so, she plays it off with a total and complete daft half-grin. If Elena lives through this, she is seriously considering abstaining from sex (because with her luck she'll wind up fucking an undercover government agent or something next) and joining a convent. It doesn't even matter that she's not religious, because at this point she will be dead by thirty with all this unwanted anxiety. Maybe having a spiritual hard-on for God would be able to help her chill out.

Throughout her inner struggle, Ms. Holden is pecking away on the computer. She has been awfully quiet since her nerve-wracking 'oh,' and Elena is trying not to make more of it than it really is.

"Hmmm."

And then she goes and makes that noise.

"Is everything okay, Ms. Holden?" is Elena's equivalent of _'oh,_god_, why would you ever make that sound? Don't tell me the records show that I've had sex with a member of the faculty.'_

"Bad news, I'm afraid," the older woman frowns considerately.

Elena is about five steps from a heart attack, heat stroke, or a mental breakdown—possibly a lethal combination of all three.

"Oh?" she returns Ms. Holden's vague vocalization and the former clucks her tongue.

"I'm sorry, Elena, but our classes are filled to capacity. You'll have to stay on Mr. Salvatore's roster."

Suffering from what may be the most ridiculous strain of emotional whiplash that she has ever faced, Elena goes through the five stages of grief within a half-second period. She doesn't really have a choice, in any case, because Ms. Holden is staring her down with an contrite expression. Nevertheless, she finds that she doesn't have to speak, not just yet.

"You can trust that Mr. Salvatore will treat you just as any other student."

The directional pull of her state of affairs toward something of a Greek tragedy nearly makes her want to laugh (until she cries).

"This may be his first year teaching, but I have heard nothing but good things about him. His relationship and yours will be nothing but professional, rest assured."

Elena is noiselessly choking on the dramatic irony.

"You're right," says Elena after a moment's pause. "Of course, yeah," The moment to feel stupid is over. In less than half the time she expected herself to, Elena resigns herself to her fate. "Thanks, anyway, Ms. Holden."

"You're welcome, dear. Sorry I couldn't be of anymore help."

Offering the woman one last smile, Elena bobs her head and makes a beeline for the door. She toys with the idea that maybe there is a god, and maybe they're seriously fucking with her, because this goes beyond a 'dick move' and straight toward a cosmic disaster.

_But you can make it work._

That's what she tells herself, at least. It's just the kind of person that she is. No matter what life throws at her (the death of her parents, the subsequent arrival of Aunt Jenna as her and Jeremy's legal guardian, and the various responsibilities she's been facing as the eldest remaining Gilbert), she always seems to make something of it. She could make something of this, too.

As she winds around the corner at the end of the hallway, she makes a swift decision to head to the girls' restroom. She just needs a moment to think and clear her head. All of her thoughts are running together in one long tangent. Elena expels a breath from her lungs as she steps over the threshold of the bathroom. Not long after, she's locking herself in a stall, closing the toilet lid, and plopping down on it to sit.

_Okay, Gilbert, so you fucked your teacher. That's minus about a thousand points for you in the Game of Life. Now, how are you going to fix it?_

Elena considers her options. If there is one aspect of this whole ordeal that she's thankful for, it's that she has a lot of paths to choose from.

For starters, she could just never show up to that class again; that'd nip that right in the bud. But then she'd flunk out and have to go to summer school, and she wouldn't get to walk at graduation. That's all her parents wanted for her, to graduate, to walk across that stage and shake hands with the school administrators when the time comes. Hell, that's all she wants. So, this one isn't really a viable choice.

Another option is basically ignoring Damon just like he suggested. Easier said than done but not impossible. She could just muddle on by, suffer through the days until looking at him didn't inspire scores of pornographic cinematography in her head. But that just sounds miserable. Elena Gilbert doesn't just _get by_. She thrives; she takes life by the horns and kicks it straight in the ass.

This is how she comes to the conclusion to address the situation as Elena Gilbert should, as Elena Gilbert was bred to do. She decides that she is going to excel in Damon's course. For all the effort she is going to put in it, she will have the highest average in the entire goddamned class. She will fight her attraction to Damon, too, and all while rubbing her academic capabilities in his smug, too-attractive face. He wants her to forget about it? Well, she won't. Nope. Instead, she will show him up. She doesn't need to forget to rise above his expectations. She'll show him all her own.

From her place on the toilet seat, Elena clenches her jaw in defiance. Yes. This will work. She breathes out and fishes inside her purse for her cell phone. She has a few texts from Stefan, Bonnie, and Caroline, but she isn't concerned with those right now. Elena goes directly to her contact directory and scrolls down to the D's. She isn't quite sure how long she stares at his name.

_Damon._

All she needs to do is delete it and move on. It's that simple.

(But is it, really?)

Elena runs her tongue over her parched lips. His name in her phone is a liability: for him, for her. Of course she knows this. Yet as her thumb lingers over the _delete contact_ button, she finds herself hesitating. Something about this feels off in a manner that she couldn't possibly articulate or explain. It just feels weird.

(Kind of similar to how thinking of faking a lack of attraction to him feels weird. Jesus, this whole situation is a fucking museum exhibit of weird.)

For the next several minutes, she stays like this, in moral limbo. She knows that she needs to delete his number from her directory, but at the same time, she doesn't want to. It's childish, and it's stupid, and it's dumb, but it is what it is. Such is why she ultimately ends up scratching her itch to hold onto his number all while ensuring that it would more or less keep them both out of jail (or wherever it is that minors wind up for doing the dirty with their educators).

Her thumb taps on the _edit_ button, and the action conjures up a picture of Damon in her mind's eye. She smirks, finding that another man comes to mind, too, as she mentally scrolls through her list of attractive men. Erasing his Damon, she keys in the pseudonym _Rob Lowe._

Though his celebrity lookalike is monumentally less attractive than Damon himself, he is also notably less suspicious and at the very least relatively similar in appearance. Elena saves the change and stuffs her phone back into her purse. She could do this. She could make this work.

(Or she would crash and burn in the worst way.)

But, you know, positive thinking and all that. It's pretty much all Elena's got left at this point, so she's going to take it and run.


	4. Push and Pull

**Thank you all so much for the alerts, favs, and feedback! You're making my little writer heart sing.**

* * *

One week later and Elena is balls-deep into her admittedly flawed and infinitely frustrating plan. She isn't sure how she manages it, but somehow, she does. Through all the anxiety, the worry, and the mastery of improv, she works her way through nine sessions of Damon's class.

Although, she couldn't say it's gone off without any hitches even if she wanted to. Frankly, she has been so invested in just trying to get by that Wednesday—also known as, the day of insert one's exaggerated negative noun of choice here—seems about nine decades away as opposed to just the factual nine days. Never mind the fact that Damon has been unknowingly making her work her damned hardest every day of the week.

Or, you know what, fuck him; maybe he's been doing it on purpose, because the shit that's been happening surely can't be normal. She's only been in his class seven days and already they are racking up the awkward experiences (as though they didn't already have enough).

Just the next day, hardly twenty-four hours after their horrifying and ill-fated discovery, she found herself once again being subjected to the incomparable sexual tether between them. Though he had surely meant to avoid it, they had somehow wound up brushing past one another.

As in, bodies grazing. In a manner that was fundamentally sexual. In a way that immediately triggered x-rated thoughts from the experience that he explicitly told her to forget about.

Now, Elena knows, in retrospect, that she should have just waited or moved or whatever. Yet for some unknown reason, when they had found themselves both needing to walk down one of the aisles of desks (her to hand in a paper and him to monitor the class) at the same time, they turned it into some hormonal dominance match. This led to a collision of breasts to chest and hip bone to thigh, which led to all of Elena's blood suddenly rushing to her cheeks and then much further south.

Yes, hindsight truly is twenty-twenty.

Luckily for them (but Elena is understandably short on her belief in luck, at this point), the rest of the class had been immersed in their pop quiz (a generous gift from Mr. Salvatore). This left the pair of them to inelegantly shimmy around each other and pretend as though it had never happened like a pair of gawky middle school teenagers being caught beneath the bleachers.

Really, this whole situation strikes Elena as exceptionally stupid. The problem is that she is so determined to one-up Damon that she has convinced herself just to deal with it. Honestly, what else can she do? She chose her path, and now she's got to see it through… which would have been all right if that had been their last uncomfortable incident.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Damon appears to have gotten more careful in the days that followed, more aware of his body and hers. But here's where the unfortunate part comes in. In doing so, he has also begun to focus more on Elena—certainly more than he or she had ever intended. Elena considers this because on Tuesday, she wore a dress that offered a generous amount of cleavage as well as a great view of her long, tan legs. (You know, the same legs that had been hitched around his waist just over a week before? Those legs.) This is all well and good, until she caught Damon perhaps unconsciously gazing down her chest as he handed her back her work (which was an A+, by the way, motherfucker; eat that shit). His eyes lingered too long, and then even longer as she stood and smoothed down her dress to go sharpen her pencil.

(Hand on the Bible; she totally didn't do this on purpose. Okay, maybe she did, just a little bit. I mean, come on, can anyone blame her?)

Damon's stare was hot on her back, and yet as soon as she turned around, he was moving on to the next student. Elena had gone back to her seat, and they resumed their delicate song and dance with her feeling far more proud of herself than she really should.

This arrogance gets quickly washed down the drain, of course, because Elena knows that she can never have nice things—not after the stunt she's pulled. Accordingly, on Wednesday, in front of God and everyone, their hands brush, touch, …_whatever_. This seems harmless, right? He's only trying to collect her class work, after all. Nope. It sends chills down her spine like it's some god-damned made-for-TV Disney movie where she's a doe-eyed Vanessa Hudgens and he's Zac Efron post-facial hair. So, she pulls her hand away too fast. This unexpected motion causes the back of her palm to slap against his, which inevitably creates this loud and awkward contact noise. Her classmates glance around in confusion, and Elena palms her blue-ink pen into a vice grip looking somewhere between helpless and constipated. Damon, on the other hand, is skating to the front of the room like nothing had even happened. And really, this whole thing has just blossomed into something unimaginably catastrophic.

Yet Elena, stubborn as a mule, keeps on going anyway. She tries to tell herself that as time goes on, everything will level out. Their here-and-there, odd glances won't set her flesh on fire. His unintended touch won't send her belly spiraling into knots and birthing butterflies. The dirty looks they give each other won't spark her as a challenge that she is determined to accept. At the end of it all, he was just a fling, a fling that she just so happened to still be devastatingly attracted to (a fling who just so happened to be her senior US Government and Politics teacher).

She could work through this.

(It should be noted, though, the dwindling confidence in Elena's timbre every time she tells herself this.)

But she digresses. If nothing else, Elena has made it nine days. It's Friday: no longer the first week of school and the end of the second. For what it's worth, she's gotten almost two weeks under her belt without any major slip-ups. In spite of the several encounters with Damon over the past few days, she prides herself on this at least as she strides toward the cafeteria's outside, corresponding courtyard. Today she's nursing a BLT sandwich and bag of grapes that she threw together in a hurry last night before collapsing, spread-eagled, on her bed. It isn't much, but neither has her appetite been as of late, so it suits her just fine.

"Hey, guys," she greets her usual group of friends as she sets down her food and carefully maneuvers onto the bench to the left of Bonnie. Across from her, Caroline and Stefan smile. "Where are Matt and Tyler?"

"They ditched for Wendy's," Bonnie grins as she rolls her eyes.

"Seriously? Again?" Elena laughs. "They do realize that Tyler's dad being the mayor only gets them so far, right? Eventually the school is going to stop giving a shit."

"Please," Caroline pops a cherry tomato into her mouth with a swift move of her fingers. "Tyler's been getting away with much worse for much longer. Let the kid have his chicken nuggets and Frosty while he still can, Mama Bear."

Elena plucks a grape from her plastic bag and chucks it over at her friend who bobs out of the way. They all laugh as it goes sailing over to a table of unsuspecting juniors and lands in one boy's mystery meat like some decorative top piece. Bonnie and Elena try not to snort as the table of mostly athletic boys stand and glare around like a pack of apes, trying to find the culprit. Stefan and Caroline are left openly howling by the way that Elena pretends to fish for something in her purse and Bonnie to cloud-gaze. When the boys eventually settle, they all snicker and get back to their lunches.

"So,_ Elena_," begins Caroline, leading Elena to know precisely where this conversation is heading. "Anymore teen rom-com moments with _Mr._ Salvatore?"

"Don't make me throw another grape at you, Care. I won't miss twice."

"Seriously!" the other girl giggles, smiling largely. "You two are better than Lifetime. What's the blooper of today?"

"Nothing. Thank god," Elena answers her truthfully before her teeth sink into her sandwich. Just the thought of another run-in with Damon has her skin blistering with heat.

"Oh, come on!"

"I mean it. Ever since the awkward… hand… thing… we've just sort of increased our efforts to avoid each other. It's that and instead of full-blown ignoring me in class, he's taken to calling me Miss Gilbert as much as humanly possible within a span of fifty minutes."

Caroline and Bonnie start giggling almost without delay.

"It's so not even funny, guys."

"Oh, come on, Elena," Bonnie elbows her good-naturedly. "It's a little funny."

"It's _a lot _funny," Caroline insists.

"You're the worst," Elena tells them around a mouth full of bacon, lettuce, and tomato. They just laugh, but really, she's pretending that her eyes can set them both on fire, because this is not even in the ballpark of funny.

Her gaze then shifts to Stefan, who has been awfully quiet. Part of her wonders if it has anything to do with the fact that this is his brother they're talking about. In all her self-pitying, Elena hasn't even stopped to think about how this must feel for the younger Salvatore, being caught between his elder sibling and his best friend.

Then she remembers that Stefan is half of the reason that she and Damon hooked up in the first place, and she ceases to feel sorry for him.

"Has he said anything?" queries Elena against her better judgment. She then proceeds to set her sandwich down as though she fears the worst.

"He avoids me about as much as he avoids you, to be honest," Stefan rolls his lips together, either fighting a smile or a grimace; Elena isn't sure. "Damon's made it pretty clear we're not supposed to talk about it."

"He's probably still pissed at you," interjects Caroline, which leads to Stefan cocking an eyebrow at her.

"Pissed at _me_?" he scoffs in good humor. "I was merely the accomplice in all this, little Miss Mastermind."

Caroline waves her hand dismissively while taking a long sip of her soft drink.

"Yeah, but I get a free pass. I'm just the girlfriend of the brother. You're the brother. He's totally blaming you for this, not me."

"Oh, is that how it is?" Stefan snaps back, smiling in spite of himself.

"Yep," she smiles, making a point of popping the 'p.'

"Well, then I guess you'll be looking for a new partner-in-crime for your next offense."

"Oh, please, as if."

Elena decides that this is her prompt to burst through the saturated love cloud that is threatening to entomb their table.

"Don't even start, Stefan. She's had you wrapped around her little finger since Kindergarten, and we all know it," she makes a point to raise her eyebrows at him before turning to meet the very pleased stare of one Caroline Forbes. "Keep him in line."

It's become somewhat of an inside joke between the girls of the group, how Stefan and Caroline seem perpetually stuck in their honeymoon stage, even after all this time. He never needs to be 'kept in line;' in fact, he's so far 'in line' that Elena wonders if it's even possible for him to wander out of it. It's actually kind of weird.

(Well, Elena probably shouldn't say 'weird,' given that her whole state of affairs takes that cake and eats it, too, as far as weird is concerned.)

Caroline winks at her, but then pauses abruptly, as though a random thought has just struck her.

"Oh, oh! I totally forgot to tell you guys."

Bonnie and Elena both groan. They know exactly where this is going. Caroline has always more or less been an open book.

"I didn't even get to tell you guys what yet!"

"You don't have to," Bonnie exhales, topping off her Sprite. "What'd you sign us all up for, Caroline?"

"You guys are seriously no fun. No fun at all."

"Just tell us," Elena palms at her face, half-nervous and half-interested. At this point, she is willing to take anything that keeps her mind off her _Rob Lowe_ problem. For Christ's sake, she is so loopy at this point that she's even taken to referring to him by his pseudonym _in her head_. Elena knows she needs all the distractions that she can get, even if it means Caroline's definition of distraction.

"Okay, well, we're seniors, so I figured that we'd better get a few last minute credits in for those college applications we'll be sending off at the beginning of December," Caroline gets that twinkle in her eyes that she does when she thinks that whatever she has signed them up for is an exceptionally good idea. This is when Elena starts to get worried. The last time she got this twinkle, it had been the night that she and her troublesome boyfriend had set Elena up with said boyfriend's older brother. Elena has more than respectable enough reasons to be concerned.

"I signed us all up for the Homecoming committee."

Elena takes a breath. _Phew_. Okay. This isn't nearly as bad as she thought.

"Finally, something that we can work with here, Forbes," Bonnie cuts in, sounding just as intrigued as Elena suddenly feels. From beside her doting boyfriend, Caroline is positively beaming with pleasure.

"Right? I thought you'd enjoy it. We get to come up with the themes of the week, handle the affairs, deal with the decorations… all that! Most of the meetings are right after school until five—sometimes six, and I know that kind of sucks, but Homecoming is only four weeks away, so I figured we could all deal."

"So, you wait until our senior year to rope us into something we may actually enjoy?" Elena shakes her head with a smile. "I see how it is."

"Oh, give me a break! You're telling me you didn't enjoy Relay for Life, Junior Prom, or doing backstage for the theatre department's rendition of High School Musical?"

It takes a good moment for Elena to steady herself to keep from spewing her water everywhere.

"Being a stagehand for High School Musical was the worst, Care! Or did all those paint fumes we inhaled in tenth grade painting those stupid backdrops give you lasting brain damage?"

"It was fun!" Caroline defends herself, putting on a playful pout as she turns to Stefan. "You had fun."

"He so did not," Bonnie bursts out laughing. "Stefan, don't even try to lie to her—or do I have to remind you about how those freshmen girls cornered and locked you in their dressing room's bathroom for an hour one afternoon?"

Stefan's face goes momentarily red before he presses his lips together.

"Babe, I had fun with you," he tells her rather uselessly and with absolutely the worst poker face that Elena has seen in her entire seventeen years on this earth. Even Caroline realizes how awful it is. So she knocks her arm into his.

"You suck," she maintains, dramatically glaring at all of them (but she can't keep that affectionate sparkle out of her eyes). "All of you."

"Yeah, well, we'll make up for it by having an extra good time this go-round, Care," Elena promises her as she dusts the crumbs from her finished sandwich off her hands and stuffs all of her trash into her paper lunch bag. Murmuring that she would be right back, she starts toward the door that would lead her back into the hallway which would take her to the cafeteria.

Caroline's news has left her in somewhat of a good mood. It was nice to know that she would have something to potentially look forward to after school, something to help keep her mind off things. In any event, it certainly beats the hell out of sitting at home in her underwear, listening to Taylor Swift, and nitpicking the laundry list of embarrassing or unfortunate things she has done within the last few months of her life. She breathes out and reaffirms her inner monologue with a distinguished nod of her head. This would be just what she needed.

Elena smiles to herself just as she is about to reach for the door handle—just as the door is pried away from her extended hand.

Just as Damon Salvatore stands in place of the recently opened door.

"Oh."

Yes, that is really all he gives her, and though it is probably a slip of the tongue and unintentional, it still ignites a fire in Elena's eyes. Why she turns every encounter with Damon into a challenge to be won is absolutely beyond her, but this is how it always starts.

"Hello… _Mr._ Salvatore."

Elena has taken to always referring to his title in a mocking fashion. Both of them know it is bullshit (all smoke and mirrors), and yet neither of them are big enough to tell the other to cut the crap. In the end, it is all about the dance that they do around each other. He calls her miss, and she calls him mister, and they pretend as though they have never seen each other naked with the lights down low. It would almost be convincing if the sexual tension between them didn't act as a living, breathing organism that anyone within a five-mile radius could see.

"Miss Gilbert."

Both of them move to the side almost in synchrony; after all, they can't block the door, and now, for whatever reason, they can't seem to just ignore each other. Perhaps this would top Elena's list of the worst meeting between the pair of them from the past two weeks. It is too soon to tell.

"How have you been?" Elena manages to ask him, her tone rigid but her gaze searing. She looks him right in the eye, practically demanding that he return the favor. She can tell that he wants to get the hell out of Dodge, but she uses her body as a means to block his path. Maybe it's Caroline's news coupled with a full stomach that has her feeling bold. Whatever it is, she is essentially pinning this man to the ground with her eyes, and even Damon looks to know it.

"Fine," Damon asserts, his jaw tensing up as it has this curious tendency to do whenever Elena is anywhere near him in public. "You?"

"_Fine_," she uses his own word against him in a way that leaves her feeling strangely exhilarated. Confronting him like this feels so wrong and yet so right on multiple levels. It almost feels, well… _naughty_, in a way. Their secret lies in their eyes, and the connection that Elena has forced between their stares has sparked into something of a wildfire. She discovers herself feeling unusually hot, perhaps as her mind begins to wander, as her thoughts start to escalate into images a little less than school appropriate. She doesn't even remember when having a simple conversation with one of her teachers turned into something so sensual and uncouth.

"You're doing well," he clears his throat, and she wonders if she has gotten the esteemed Damon Salvatore to trip over his words for once in his charmed life. "In class."

"I have always been good at social studies," Elena lifts her chin just so. "You're doing well. For a first-year teacher."

There goes that verbal Napoleon complex of hers, rearing its ugly head again. Elena knows she gets a little too big for her britches around this man, but _lord help her_ to remember that they are in public, at his place of work—that there are teachers and students passing them by as they speak. So help her, because she is about five seconds from rubbing up against him like a cat.

(Where the fuck did that even come from?)

"Thank you," Damon replies to her cordially enough, but there is venom lurking in the undertow of his voice. That familiar muscle in his jaw ticks, too, and Elena knows that she has struck some sort of chord with him. She tries her best not to smirk. He is making this far too easy for her.

"Since you are a new teacher… have they wrangled you into any extracurriculars yet?" Elena is well aware of how smug she sounds and feels. To be perfectly honest, she believes that she has earned her right to be so. He tells her to ignore him, to forget everything, only to have him treat her as though she doesn't even exist or, worse, that she is now a thorn in his side. She has earned overconfident and smug. As expected, Damon is less than pleased with the manner in which she chooses to fan and display her feathers, but he is at least intelligent enough not to say anything (yet). Lifting his own head, he continues to meet her eye. However, she notices that he watches as one of his coworkers passes by and offers him a smile in his peripheral vision. It is yet another reminder of their environment and what is at stake.

"Yes," he answers her dully. "It seems that they've put me as the teacher in charge of overseeing the Homecoming committee. I didn't have to ask around to know that's for teachers at the very bottom of the totem pole."

He's still talking, but Elena has stopped hearing him speak. Really, the only words that stuck are _teacher in charge_ and _overseeing_ and _Homecoming committee_. Flushed down with the color in her face is that fickle arsenal of pride. She goes from mighty huntress to trembling rodent in one second flat, and all she can think is how she has to get the fuck out of here and how life apparently hates her oh-so-fucking much.

"Homecoming," she does her best impression of an indifferent laugh (which sounds more like a fraught wheeze). "A nine to one shift of patrolling dry-humping teens and checking for smuggled alcohol."

Fuck. How the hell does she get herself out of this situation? She does her best not to look alarmed or even as though anything is out of the ordinary. Forget the fact that in doing so probably just makes her look even more ridiculous.

"That would be the easy component, Miss Gilbert," he says her name with such open derision that Elena, for a very brief moment, forgets that she is freaking the fuck out on the inside. The anger and the fire return, and she is meeting his eye with all the fury of a woman scorned.

"Oh?" Elena indulges him, but only because she needs more time to plot her inevitable escape. She thumbs through her mental catalog of excuses, all while forgetting her most obvious one that rests in her hands (her trash that still needs to be thrown away).

"They're insisting that I stay after school every day with the committee to chaperone _them_, too."

And there's her cue if she ever saw one.

"Well, good luck with that," she forces her best (fakest, most sarcastic, most panicked) smile, before darting to the left of him and hauling so much ass into the cafeteria that she nearly knocks over two freshmen varsity soccer players and trips over her own two feet in the process. Elena is barely two feet inside the door before she has a full map laid out of her plan to brutally murder Caroline Forbes.

(They would never find her body.)


	5. Homewrecker

**Extra special thanks to Layla who tackled this chapter to the ground and made it her bitch. ;)**

* * *

Elena corners Caroline at the end of lunch that day, running on adrenaline and a clichéd arc of teenage betrayal. She pulls her off to the side of the hall and waves everyone else away.

"Did you know?" she demands, so blind with shock and rage that she doesn't realize that she is almost certainly overreacting. Caroline squeaks when Elena releases her grasp on her arm, looking wide-eyed and confused.

"Know about what?" Her best friend appears more bewildered than ever.

"Care, _seriously_? I swear to god, sometimes I could just—"

_Okay, Elena. Breathe in; breathe out. Put your homicidal alter-ego aside for five seconds._

Following her own advice, Elena steps back for a moment, putting some space between her and Caroline. She runs her fingers haphazardly through her hair, fluffing it up and leaving it looking tussled. It's only as she draws her teeth over her lower lip that she at last lets herself meet the other girl's eyes.

"He's the teacher assigned to head the Homecoming committee, Caroline," Elena allows these words to sink in for a moment before continuing. "_Please_ tell me you didn't know." Even hearing her own voice, she can't decide if she sounds more fraught or enraged. Caroline, on the other hand, is looking just about purple with incredulity.

"Oh, my god, Elena," a frown sends similar creases across Caroline's forehead as she hesitantly steps forward. "I promise- no, _I swear_, I had no idea! Scout's honor."

It takes Elena a moment to digest this. Deep down, she knows that her friend is telling the truth. After all the stress Elena has been under the past two weeks, she truly believes that Caroline knows better than to pile even more on her. Nevertheless, it doesn't make the news any more or less comforting. The fact of the matter is that Damon is still their supervising teacher either way.

Elena exhales.

"I- yeah, Care. I know," her hands rise to her own face and the recollection that she is wearing makeup is the only thing keeping her from attempting to rub her skin off in frustration. "I'm sorry… I just sort of… freaked out on you."

The initial shock and hurt on Caroline's face is replaced with sympathy. She forgives her quickly as they walk arm-in-arm into the school building and toward their next class. But the confrontation has done little to quell Elena's mounting nerves.

**. . .**

Flash forward to a day later and the two of them are trying to have at least one normal, uninterrupted, nice and relaxing moment with the rest of their friends. Normal is a stretch at this point, but Elena is willing to make due in the best way that she can. To be honest, she's so out of her element with this whole situation that she hadn't even bothered trying to throw herself together this morning before going over to Stefan's house. Elena had thrown her hair up into a messy bun and tossed on her old cheer sweats. Fuck make-up. Fuck showering. Fuck matching clothing. She had washed her face, brushed her teeth, slapped on some deodorant and headed on over to Chez Salvatore

"Damon's out," Stefan had said. "Running errands."

(Whatever the hell that meant.)

In any case, she has now been there for a little under an hour. Tyler, Matt, Bonnie, Caroline, and (of course) Stefan are there, too. They're all piled in the kitchen, hovering around the center island as they tear into the endless supply of snacks from the Salvatores' unreasonably huge pantry. Elena is working on her third slice of the half-pepperoni, half-chicken and bacon pizza they had ordered and feeling about as shitty as she looks.

But really, ask her if she gives a fuck.

(She doesn't. She really, really doesn't.)

"He tried to pretend like he didn't remember how old I was," Elena isn't sure if she's about to laugh or cry onto her pizza. She also can't remember how much she's had to drink. Though, she has a feeling she would probably be embarrassed to realize that it's not nearly as much as she thinks to be blubbering like this.

"He didn't," remarks Bonnie.

"Mm-hmm," there goes Elena again, further exemplifying her level of attraction by ghosting the back of her hand over her lips to rid them of tomato sauce. "It's not like he hasn't known me since I was born," the realization dawns on her like an arctic-cold bucket of water (or, maybe, undiluted hydrochloric acid). "Oh, _god_, I slept with someone_ who saw me in diapers_."

There's a murmur around the kitchen that ends with Stefan cupping the small of Elena's back with enough brotherly affection to leave the contents of her stomach reeling. She laughs at the hilarity of it all, because really, what a fucking life she has.

"My life is so weird."

A brief pause settles between them all before an idea strikes.

"Oh! I know!" says Caroline on a whim through a mouth full of double-stuffed Oreos, and Elena knows that whatever is about to come out of her mouth is another one of her terrible, awful, rotten, no-good ideas. "Maybe one of you can date Elena," her eyes are on Tyler and Matt, and everyone but Elena laughs. Probably because everyone but Elena finds Elena's dating background a regular late-night stand-up comedy special.

"Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt w_aaa_y back in junior high," Matt reminds everyone with a smile that's supposed to be taken as sweet and yet somehow devious all at the same time. Yet Elena sure isn't laughing as she takes her empty Coke can and pelts it in his general direction. She so isn't drunk.

(Okay, maybe she is. Just a little.)

"No offense, 'Lena, but you're not really my type," Tyler observes frankly, tipping his glass to her, to which Elena just squints and presents him with her best sourpuss expression. She's all pouty lips and teen angst.

"You all suck so much," Elena grumbles as she slumps onto one of the comfy barstools. "My dating rap sheet isn't that bad."

Cue more laughing and more of Elena not smiling.

"I swear I'll leave."

"Oh, c'mon, Elena," Caroline swoops to her best friend's side at once. "We'll lay off. Remember! This is your therapy session. Consider us your dating support group. After all, who's been here through all your bumps and bruises, huh?"

"Like captain of the soccer team freshman year," says Matt.

"The vet tech from junior year," Bonnie smirks.

"And who could forget the pizza delivery guy?" Stefan inclines his beer to her.

They all succumb to laughter again, and the most fucked up aspect of this whole scene is that part of Elena wants to smile and cackle, too. Their teasing is all in good nature. They're trying to cheer her up; and, really, her dating record is pretty fucking appalling. Angling her head down toward the counter, she just sighs and reaches for another beer from the counter. Popping off the cap, she raises it in her honor.

"To my shitty choice in men," she toasts, and all of them drink to that.

For the next few minutes, they talk noisily amongst themselves. Tyler is going on and on about his latest, older conquest. (Apparently, it's some congresswoman which—holy shit, and Elena thinks her circumstances are fucked up?) Matt and Rebekah are celebrating one of their _monthiversaries_ as Rebekah calls them and she's so borderline romantically obsessed with her brother that she wants Klaus, Caroline, and Stefan to all go out together on a double date with them to commemorate the occasion. It's all very _Flowers in the Attic_.

"Is this your first time meeting the family?" Elena wonders, eyeballing Caroline and Stefan.

"No," Stefan answers first, giving Elena a sneaking suspicion that he would have tacked on an 'unfortunately not' at the end of his reply had Caroline not been to his immediate right.

"We've hung out before," Caroline chimes in now. "She's really cool. I mean, she's one of those types of people that you have to get used to, y'know? Like, you either like her or you hate her; there's really no in-between, right, Matt?"

Elena doesn't look for Matt's answer, because her eyes are too busy dancing merrily over to Stefan who she knows definitely falls into the latter category. This is all the information that she needs to know for future purposes. The chances that she would get along well with Rebekah grow slimmer every time she comes up in conversation. But, naturally, Elena would give her a chance. She's just that type—somewhat of a sucker for second chances, redemption, and all that. It's one of her weaknesses, one could say. She's always been sort of a softie for misfits, for obvious reasons.

"Speaking of the Mikaelsons," Bonnie starts to say, her eyebrows wriggling immediately up; with the flip of a switch, she turns on her best faux-British accent, "How is the devilishly handsome Klaus?"

This has them all in stitches because, really, it's bad.

So very, very bad.

"Don't tell me _that's_ your best British accent!" Caroline manages to get out through giggles as though dating a Brit suddenly qualifies her as some sort of connoisseur of foreign drawls.

Nursing the remainder of her beer, Elena purses her lips to keep from snickering. She sets down her glass bottle before swiping the back of her palm over her lips again. (She's feeling extra classy and sassy today in her ramshackle state.) Even so, all the while, she does her best not to look _too_ (lightheartedly) judgmental.

"Seriously, Bonnie, that was bad."

"Oh, shut up, you two, it's not like I'm up for an Academy Award!" she shoots back with a face full of imaginary offense.

"Not with that accent you're not," Tyler cuts in, leaving Bonnie to lean over to dump the rest of her cup of ice water on top of his head and down the front of his shirt. The effeminate shriek that follows leaves all of them incapacitated with childish glee for almost ten minutes before Caroline can rein everyone in again. Come rain or snow, she never misses an opportunity to discuss her and Stefan's new man.

"He's good, though, really," she all but purrs. "He's taking us down to his beach house in Florida for Fall Break, isn't he, Stefan?"

Her boyfriend nods, presumably leaning over to give her knee a squeeze. Elena contemplates reaching for another beer or maybe even something stronger (like arsenic). She is too sober to deal with all this romance talk. God bless her friends, really; she honestly loves them to death, but their love lives spark such jealousy and envy within her. It's their last year of high school and all of them have something going for them. For fuck's sake, even her little brother Jeremy has found a love interest—in Elena's best friend since childhood, no less. Sometimes Elena sincerely worries over her inability to choose the right partner. It's become a bona fide issue.

Or, more aptly, it's become a real identity quandary. She's the girl who is perpetually unsatisfied and, therefore, always choosing the wrong men. Elena chooses the ones who are fun at first but who always come up short in one way or another. They either want too much too quickly, too little too quickly, or are just downright ill-suited for her. Really, if dating was a class, she'd have flunked out at the start of junior high when she went on her first date with a guy for whom she wound up having to call an ambulance because of an asthma attack. Her record is honest-to-god that terrible.

(As in, maybe that first date should have been a clue.)

The sound of a car engine stops Elena's thoughts and the spin of her barstool dead in their tracks. Screwing up her face, she leans slightly in her seat, trying to peer around a sopping wet Tyler and a still-smug Bonnie. At first, she can't get a good picture of the car that's pulling into the driveway.

"Did one of you order more takeout or something?" Elena inquires of the group, legitimately baffled. When all of them respond in the negative, she slides off the stool and pads toward the window. She is abruptly very thankful she hadn't consumed any more alcohol, because her stomach drops to her feet almost at once.

It's a blue 1969 Chevy Camaro Convertible—also known as her seemingly lifelong existential crisis in car form.

To make matters even worse, it's got a passenger in it this time: an abhorrently familiar, large-chested, curly-haired, Prada-wearing passenger.

"Are you _fucking kidding me_?" the words that come out of Elena's mouth are the G-rated version compared to the string of profanity that's currently coursing through her head.

As Damon cuts the engine, gets out of the driver's side, and moves to open the door for his passenger, Elena almost rips a hole in her blouse.

"Holy shit," Caroline balks from beside Elena, who has no idea when she even got there. "What the hell is Katherine Pierce doing here?"

Feeling irrational and irritated, Elena whips around to Stefan.

"I thought you said Damon would be out," her fingers rise to form air quotes. "Running errands."

"He is!" Stefan defends his claim with his palms out. This is until his girlfriend jabs her thumb toward the window, and he moves to see for himself. "He… was!"

"Stefan Salvatore, I could just—" but whatever Elena intends to say, she doesn't say it. Her mind is too horrified by the sight of Damon carrying Katherine Pierce's bags to the front door like a fucking bellboy.

"Katherine Pierce is here?" Tyler perks up straight away with Matt following close behind. Even Bonnie looks a little star-struck. Elena is left feeling more murderous than ever and maybe even a little bit betrayed.

Katherine had grown up in their town, even graduated from their high school a few years back. Now she's a C-list actress doing god-knows-what out in Los Angeles (where she should have stayed, in Elena's absolutely irate opinion). In all honesty, Elena has tried not to look into or even fathom to care about her, not after how she remembers Katherine treating Damon when they were all younger.

Yes. Damon and Katherine dated, back when they were in high school and Elena and company were barely in middle school.

(Which, _fuck_, that sounds creepy. Elena definitely does not want to think about the time when she was eleven and Damon was eighteen. Not when, almost a decade later, she's had her thighs wrapped around his face.)

Everyone had been convinced that Damon and Katherine would marry each other, if only because everyone knew Katherine was a parasitic opportunist (read: _gold digger_) and the Salvatores—like most Mystic Falls founding families—were filthy, stinking rich. Elena, being the eleven-year-old and newly hormonal pre-teen that she was back then, automatically hated Katherine on principle alone.

Or maybe it had a tiny something to do with the fact that Elena had been crushing on Stefan's _super cool_, tall, dark and handsome older brother since she could first remember discovering boys.

This is a detail of her life that Elena tends to omit. She often attempts to block out the memories of her awkward years for the shameful, disconcerting, and near-obsessive attraction she harbored for her best friend's elder sibling. No one has to tell her the irony of this repeat performance almost seven years later, because trust her, the irony's not lost (however desperately she wishes it was).

But, as always, she rambles, to herself included.

Long story short, Damon had wanted to be a teacher since he learned how to read and write, and Katherine didn't think this was a profession suited for even the lowest male scum on her dateable (or, in this case, _un-dateable_) totem pole. This is, of course, entirely ignoring the fact that she had cheated on him over and over _and over_ again.

But who was counting?

(Not creepy, braces-wearing Elena. No, of course not!)

Predictably, though, once the elder Salvatore strayed from both Katherine's and Papa Salvatore's expectations of him becoming a lawyer for the family firm, both of them kicked him to the curb, so to speak. Where Giuseppe turned his eyes toward his youngest son, Katherine set her sights on fame and fortune. As beautiful as she is, it hadn't been difficult for her. Between short but noticeable roles on famous young adult television shows and a couple of movie deals, she has already made quite a name for herself. It also doesn't hurt that she purposefully befriends those richer and more famous than she. Elena assumes this is what got Katherine her most recent and first-ever A-list acting gig.

Or maybe Elena's still just bitter. Maybe Katherine really is a good actress.

(That is definitely a joke.)

Practically impaling her bottom lip with her teeth, Elena swings around to face the front door just as it flies open. It's undeniably the will of Satan that Katherine walks in first.

"The house is just as I remember it," Katherine surveys as she strides forward with her long, long legs in her short, short mini-dress. She really does look stunning, but Elena is too short-circuited by her petty hatred and rage to truly appreciate the view.

(Because if she had been, _holy tits_.)

"It's only been two years, Kat," Damon amends, as he drags her seemingly endless collection of luggage inside. Elena has to bite the inside of her mouth, because _oh my god who does this woman think she is? _Thankfully, Stefan steps forward before she can get down on all fours, extend her claws and lunge at Katherine like some wild animal.

"Uh, hey, Damon," he greets his brother uncertainly before his eyes journey to their unexpected guest. "Long time no see, Katherine."

"Aw, Stef, come here!" In an instant, she has her arms flung around Stefan as though they are long-lost best friends. This is hilarious given the fact that Stefan, like most sensible individuals, can't fucking stand her. Though, it is admittedly funny to watch as Stefan gracelessly pats her on the back like she's someone's cat piss-scented, drunk great aunt. The poor boy never has been very capable in social situations, especially in uncomfortable moments like this. It almost makes Elena smile.

While in her brief reverie, Tyler and Matt are plodding forward with Bonnie in tow as Caroline moves to join Stefan with a look that could kill.

"Damon, so, I… thought you'd be out today," Stefan says this as though it's a reminder—a veiled, _so what the fuck are you doing here?_—and Elena loves him immensely for it. She knew she'd kept this suave fucker around since their diaper-rash days for a reason.

"I was out," Damon replies rather deprecatingly as he sets down Katherine's last suitcase. "Now I'm back."

Stefan is visibly taken aback by his response but somehow manages to do absolutely no one any favors by saying nothing at all. Elena draws her tongue over her front teeth and debates human morality. At the top of her list: How wrong would it be to pick up Katherine's bags and toss them and her plastic-self out on the streets in front of a moving van? She lets these thoughts simmer on low as the woman herself moves toward them, clearly reveling in the way that Elena's friends are regarding her and her celebrity status.

"Damon was kind enough to offer to pick me up at the airport," is the lovely bit of unwarranted information she offers the room. Elena has an inkling that it isn't so much that Damon offered but that she snapped her fingers and he came, even after all these years and all she's put him through.

"What are you doing back here in Mystic Falls?" poses Tyler, putting on his best macho-man act, which makes Elena want to puke down the front of his wet t-shirt and chest.

"Filming my new movie, of course."

Elena could have screamed, but instead she works toward looking pleasant.

(Pleasant in the way that a charismatic serial killer is _pleasantly_ tending to her rose garden with giant scissors as she contemplates murder.)

"Wait," it's Benedict Bonnie speaking up now, sounding as excited as ever. "Seriously?"

When Katherine nods, it sends all of her friends (except for Caroline and Stefan) into excited chatter. In the meantime, Elena is trying desperately not to meet Damon's eyes, despite the fact that she can feel _his _on her. Then she remembers that she doesn't—or, rather, isn't supposed to—give a shit. So she dares to meet his gaze, and there's a peculiar spark in his eyes. It's something that she can't quite place, an emotion thriving on some morally grey frequency that Elena can't grasp. It fuels her fire. She takes it as a challenge.

"So, Katherine, I thought you had left Mystic Falls for good," Elena remarks coolly, shamelessly cutting through the conversation. "Something about the people being destined for welfare and completely incompetent, I think."

The high degree of malice in her voice is not the least bit inadvertent as she quotes the exact words she remembers Katherine using against Damon all those years ago. She and Stefan have never forgotten them and certainly Damon (as their unwilling recipient) hasn't either. The latter is almost certainly why Elena regrets them as soon as they leave her mouth. Alcohol has a way of making her too cocky for her own good. It had been a well-kept secret that Stefan and Elena had been there—two eleven-year-olds, lurking in the shadows—to hear the blockbuster break-up that sent Damon away from Mystic Falls.

But it's officially not a secret anymore.

Elena swears she could have heard a pin drop for a good five seconds after her revelation. Yet as Katherine angles her head toward her, eyes narrowed and nearly serpentine in nature, Elena stands her ground. She's feeling lively and ready to pick a fight. She doesn't consider that picking a fight with someone as renowned as Katherine Pierce could ever be a bad idea.

"I'm sorry," Katherine laughs softly before tossing her hair over her shoulders. "Who are you?"

Elena conjures up all of her strength not to keel over with laughter. Because, really? That's the best Katherine can come up with? Bless her.

"Elena Gilbert. We've met before."

"Funny," suggests Katherine. "I don't remember you."

_Ooo-ooof course you don't._

The room goes positively frigid after that, and at last Elena permits her gaze to wander back toward Damon. He's looking at her intensely—a look that would have been lethal if he so obviously didn't demand answers to his burning questions beforehand. In spite of the severity of his knife-like blue eyes, she still has the audacity to give him a brash smile, because what the hell else is she supposed to do? She realizes she's acting half her age about one second too late to reclaim the gesture. Appearing the text-book definition of unimpressed, Damon averts his eyes from her as though he can't stand to look at her while Elena is left to pretend this doesn't at all bruise her ego. Katherine, on the other hand, fakes a yawn of some sort before arching her back like a cat and peeking over her shoulder at Damon.

"Damon, I'm tired. Could you help me unpack?"

Elena and Stefan freeze in synchrony.

"Unpack?" Stefan parrots.

"Oh, Damon didn't tell you?" Katherine puts on her best red carpet smile. "He's offered me one of your spare rooms while I'm here filming for the next six weeks. The Salvatore estate is, after all, much nicer than any of the grimy hotels in this place."

All of a sudden, Elena thinks that she won't be so alone in her prospective serial killing endeavors. She watches the muscles in Stefan's body go totally rigid as Damon swoops down to claim Katherine's belongings. As they noisily ascend the staircase with Katherine's hands coasting up and down Damon's arm and her laugh bouncing from wall to wall, Elena is left to rearrange the jagged puzzle pieces of her life up until this moment.

_I'm attracted to this guy, who I slept with, who is my teacher. His terrifying, vindictive, celebrity ex-girlfriend is back in town, sleeping in his house (possibly _with_ him). I have to pretend like this doesn't bother me for the next six weeks—no, scratch that: for the rest of my underage or even known life._

No, this definitely does not bother Elena at all. She had been making strides in overcoming all the twists and turns of the last few weeks. Nope, this does not bother her. She is the queen of being unbothered—the mistress of appearing unperturbed and…

_Fuck._

It bothers her. It bothers her a whole fucking lot.

"I need another drink."

The enablers that she calls friends stick another bottle of beer in her hand, and she tries not to think about the fact that Katherine's got Damon up in one of those bedrooms doing who-knows-what.

Honestly?_ Katherine. _Of all the people Damon allows to waltz back into his life.

Then, she pauses and nearly doubles over with mirthless laughter. Not even yesterday (or has it two? no, _three_ weeks ago, now?), Elena was waving the flag of her own womanly country in strict solidarity, swearing off Damon and perhaps men all-together. Now today she's become a sanctioned witness to herself becoming both possessive and tetchy over someone who is not even hers.

(Who could not be hers. Hell, who _should not_ be hers.)

Elena sets her half-finished drink on the countertop and jerks her fingers through her hair before remembering that she had thrown it up in a bun. The physical pain is only secondary to the inner turmoil and confusion she feels.

As she watches her hair-tie fall melodramatically to the floor like some trite metaphor for her life, she's halfway between tears and laughter. (For what—the twelfth time in less than a span of sixty minutes?) When she kicks it with her heel and turns her back on her beer, she decides to spend the rest of their time together sober enough to be considered at least a sawed-off version of an intellectual ingénue in her soap special but tipsy enough to convince herself that she doesn't care.


End file.
